


Escape From Jotunheim Prison

by remarkable1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Loki: Agent of Asgard, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Jotunheim Setting, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Awakening, BAMF Hermione Granger, Beating, Begging, Betrayal, Blood and Violence, Character Development, Cold Weather, Come Swallowing, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Curses, Death, Developing Friendships, Enemies, Epic Battles, Escape, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family Reunions, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Heterosexual Sex, Intrigue, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jotunn | Frost Giant, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Kindred Spirits, King Loki of Utgard, Lies, Love, Love will find a way, MILD pregnancy kink, Magical Artifacts, Magical Bond, Marvel Jotunn Culture, Mild Kink, Miracles, Multiple Orgasms, Murder, Mystery, Name-Calling, Near Death Experiences, Non-Sexual Bondage, Oral Sex, Power Exchange, Prayer, Prison Sex, Protective Frigga (Marvel), Public Humiliation, Realization, Rescue, Reunions, Revenge, Rough Sex, Self-Acceptance, Serious Injuries, Sex, Snow and Ice, Spirit World, Starvation, Storytelling, Swearing, Threats, Threats of Violence, Torture, Transformation, True Love, Vaginal Sex, Victory, War, Yggdrasil - Freeform, Útgarðar | Utgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26261425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remarkable1/pseuds/remarkable1
Summary: An intrepid Hermione Granger finds a treasure that's been lost to the ages. Chased by Yetis, she falls through the Mirror, only to find herself in the prison cell of a mythical God. What they discover about each other, and themselves, transcends time, unraveling a mystery that has spanned through many ages, dragging hundreds of souls with them to the very end of their final journey together.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Loki (Marvel)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 123
Collections: A Labyrinth of Fics, Marvelously Magical Mini Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

This crossover fandom work was created for Facebook's Marvelously Magical Mini Bang Summer Festival. Crossovers are between Harry Potter characters and other fandoms. I chose Loki Odinson and Hermione Granger. This story is complete at approximately 35K words and 12 chapters. 

Thank you to all of the hard work the mods, other leaders, betas, artists and friends that helped us reach the end of this journey and add the spice of new work to the crossover fandoms.

I am honored to have been a part of this, proud to have completed it, and assure you this one *wink wink* really is finished. 

Chapter 1

Hermione finally broke through the magical rock barrier. She saw a glint of metal ahead. 'At last!’ Her mind crowed. Three years of painstaking research, interviews, hunting through remote global areas and exhausting her ministry order of Merlin, First-class, award money, and she had finally reached her goal!

Deep in the Himalayas, past Yeti guards and mythical mountain peoples, she'd snuck. Her body was lean, flexible, weathered, and tanned. There was barely an ounce of fat on her save for the more feminine attributes. Hair cropped boy-short and wearing skin-tight, specialized armour. Only a bare minimum of supplies, Hermione was equipped to travel light, fast, undetected, and in any type of weather.

At last, she had hit paydirt.

Legend and fable became a reality as she further pried rocks and sediment from the narrow hole she'd squeezed through twenty feet down from her current position. Her specialized spelunking holidays came in very, very handy during this expedition. She'd had to widen the crevice as she went, and it was slippery and challenging work. The shaft extended straight down below to exit in the low ceiling of a black cavern she’d had a devil of a time scaling in the first place.

As she scraped away the last of the sediment, her jaw dropped in awe. Pulling herself up to the small, but spacious, cavern that opened above her and onto the hard-packed dirt floor, she spied the treasure she’d sought.

The Mirror was gorgeous.

Her low-profile headlamp scoured its surface, evidencing no flaws marring its exquisite veneer. If the stories were true, this Mirror was four thousand years old. Possibly older. An actual work of the Gods lost to antiquity, until now.

Mesmerizing images flashed across its surface in rapid succession. Alien landscapes, both terrifying and divine, were interspersed with the black void of space. It was tall, the length of her body and then some, and twice as wide. It beckoned her, teasing her to take a chance and jump through, travel to an exotic land, never to return. It was a one-way trip.

The real danger was you didn't know where you would end up. Would you suffocate in the vacuum of space? Get eaten by some enormous creature? Burn in a pit of fiery lava? Or emerge in a paradise and live like a queen for the rest of your life?

Her reverie was disturbed by a series of grunts and cries filling the air coming from someplace to her right. 

Swinging her lamp around, a formerly unseen, and unaccounted for, opening in the high cavern wall evidenced hairy, shadowy figures looming. It sloped down a steep embankment before rising sharply to where she stood, the Mirror perched on a dais only a meter’s length away.

The speed with which Yeti could move was astounding. She thought for sure she’d have time before they reached her with their size, smug in her knowledge it would take them some time to scale down and back up the embankment.

Wasteful in her attempt to secure the Mirror so it sustained no damage, the success of her adventures caught up to her in spades as the underestimated creatures simply leapt off the edge from where they’d emerged, completely, clearing the entire embankment.

The floor rumbled beneath their feet, cracking the ground beneath them. 

Stalactites threatened to impale her as they rained down, scrambling up the steps of the dais, more Yeti pouring forth, and she reached out, flinging herself behind the Mirror and discovering herself on a very narrow ledge of rock hidden by the Mirror. She very nearly lost her footing, hugging the Mirror with one boot threatening to fall off and fumbling for her wand.

A pair of hairy hands scrabbled at her ankles, and she screamed. Yetis had a very long reach, and she could just feel the tips of its claws scraping her footwear and suit. Peeking around the edge, she observed the Yeti grunting and motioning towards her and the Mirror, but oddly, none ascended the steps.

Whatever their fear or concern, it didn’t stop them from attempting to grab her from below. Her wand finally in hand, she blasted down at the creature, sending it howling away from her, the stink of singed fur lending an acrid smell to the air as another took its place. The beast jumped at her, claws tearing a wide swath of blood and fabric down her thigh, embedding in her ankle where it tugged, twisting it at the joint so she screamed in agony.

Desperately trying to concentrate but unwilling to let go of her treasure, she sent a _Stupify_ at the one that had injured her. What sounded like a series of loud grunts that may or may not have been orders seemed to organize the pursuit.

Those below the dais finally decided it was fine to charge her from that direction, as well.

When a smaller one jumped from below, she flung herself the best she was able to in front of the Mirror, nearly falling through it, feeling a great wind on her left arm that had the skin stinging from bits of debris pelting it, as if from a sandstorm. She pulled it back in, now surrounded and confronted by the Yeti.

The lead one motioned to her, pointing at the Mirror, then at her wand, indicating she hand it over.

Trembling, feeling the blood pooling over her twisted ankle, she glanced nervously back at the changing Mirror scenes, hoping and praying silently it would flash to something somewhat habitable looking so she had a chance to escape. Hermione had no desire to be Yeti food or a prisoner for the rest of her life. The Yeti were not known for their mercy.

A yelp escaped her lips as something embedded itself in her wand arm. She barely held onto her wand, sheathing the length of wood instantly when she felt her fingers going numb.

Hermione knew she needed to do something, but her thoughts dulled almost immediately as she stared dumbly at the tip of the poisoned dart sticking straight out of the meat of her arm.

The lead Yeti yelled at another that had shot the dart, and they erupted into some sort of argument.

If she didn't think quickly, the poison would soon overwhelm her entirely as her heart cheerfully pumped it through her circulatory system.

Desperate to escape when the Yeti seemed to lose their patience and surge forward, she allowed herself to fall through the Mirror, having no idea if her effort would work, or even where she would end up if it did. At this point, anywhere was better than _here._. At least, with the Mirror, she had a chance to live. In this hole in the ground, she was sure to die.

Her last thought before being sucked through the Mirror wasn't missing her family or friends. It wasn't even of her own safety. It was that the Mirror would again be lost to antiquity, and she'd never be able to share her triumph with the world. The wizarding community would eventually declare her missing, then presumed dead, and the world would move on without Hermione Granger.

A sucking sensation enveloped her sense, and she was squeezed like toothpaste through a tube, the air pushed forcibly from her lungs. She gasped for air, scrabbling for purchase where there was none, and her body elongated like a rubber band about to snap. She screamed once more, the pain almost worse than that of the _Cruciatus_ at full blast. Then she was landing on a cold, white, illuminated floor, and a significant weight tumbled on top of her. Her world went black.

==

She woke, bound and gagged, but alive. As soon as she pried her crusty eyes open, she regretted it, slamming them shut. The light was artificial, with no definable source. It was way too bright and came from all around.

A voice sounded nearby. "You've decided to rejoin the land of the living, I see. How very thoughtful. I was beginning to think you didn't want my company. So rude, after I saved your pathetic mortal life."

Hermione desperately searched her mind for answers as to her whereabouts and came up blank. She froze when a slender, but masculine hand slid over the curve of her ass.

"Do you know how long it's been since I’ve touched a woman? Or even another living being, for that matter? No, of course, you don't." The voice chuckled, nearer. "You are, indeed, a fine specimen of mortal flesh. Female, too, lucky for me. Perhaps not so lucky for you." What she assumed was a "he" slapped her ass once, hard, then moved away.

_'Great,'_ she thought. _'Prisoner, incapacitated, injured and with a possible lunatic rapist on my hands.'_ Death by Yeti may have been preferable of the two choices after all.

She ignored everything now except her focus on each limb of her body. There was no problem with respiration, heart rate elevated, but not unusual considering her predicament. Hands and fingers were going numb, which was no surprise with the tight bindings around her wrists. Feeling was evident in her torso and groin, but one leg was completely numb, and the other so from the knee down. She sent another little prayer to whatever or whomever may be listening, that she wouldn’t lose her legs or feet. 

A small burn in her arm was the only reminder of the poisonous dart, and she had no idea if it was still lodged there or not. At least her captor hadn’t placed her so her body weight was pressed against where the dart was or had been.

Even if she could make her feet, she couldn't run or even crawl. The pain was still there, but bearable, and she wondered how on Earth the poison hadn't killed her yet. Perhaps it hadn’t been meant to, and only incapacitate. Hermione refused to further think on that possibility. She honestly didn’t want to know what the Yeti would do to her, if they had kept her prisoner instead of killing her outright.

A distant sound caught her attention, and her captor ripped a strip of something, probably from a garment, and tied it firmly around her eyes from behind. Now she couldn't see anything even if she tried. He grabbed her roughly by the ankles. Despite the lack of sensation, she moaned loudly as electric shocks of agony shot from one knee up into her groin, and the other hip felt like it was being pulled from its socket. Her captor hauled her like a sack of potatoes across the floor, her head dragging, but not injured as the surface was smooth.

She felt herself being shoved into a very tight space and protested, "Mmmm! Mmmmm!"

The voice slapped her face, hard, stunning her as it hissed, "You will be SILENT, or I will kill you, slowly, painfully, intimately, in every way you fear. Do you understand?"

She was stubbornly silent, and he slapped her again, so now stars were dancing merrily behind her eyelids. 

Nodding quickly after that, he grunted what she assumed was a temporary acceptance of her submissiveness and closed a panel, sealing her into a half-sized coffin space like a canned sardine.

Minutes passed, and the pain he’d caused her became so unbearable she passed out. She floated in and out of consciousness, noting vaguely that the numbness had moved up her body to encompass her entire groin. When she could no longer feel anything in that area, her body released the waste it had been holding. The only way she knew was from the telltale smell of urine and excrement as she soiled herself.

Hermione welcomed death, praying it took her soon. Her face was on fire from the blows she'd sustained, and her heart was beating erratically, and she assumed the effects of the poison were spreading. _'Soon, it'll be over. Very soon.'_

In the distance, deep, presumably male, voices could be heard, rising and falling in the cadence of conversation, or argument.

A shudder from the surrounding rock structure boomed, shaking her body hard enough to cause her head to slam back into the rock face. She bit her tongue, blood welling up and out of her mouth, soaking the rag. As the cloth saturated with blood, leaving the excess nowhere to go, the coppery liquid then ran back down her throat. It mixed copiously with her saliva, choking her.

She tried coughing it clear but only managed to shoot the mixture up her nose and out the nostrils, now mixed with snot.

Gasping for air, she was barely coherent when a firm grip pulled her from the crevice, swearing in a language she was unfamiliar with.

"You will _NOT_ die on me, damn you!" the voice shouted in her ear.

The person behind the voice was doing something to her body. Still, it didn't register any further than frantic movement, pressure, and a sudden warmth that eliminated the stabbing pain lancing through her. Relieved she could finally relax, she allowed herself to sink into the oblivion of death. _'Finally.'_

In the deepest recesses of her subconscious, a gentle hand took hers in a firm grasp. “Follow me.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend. It is not your time. I will keep you safe.”

“But that’s not – I’m supposed to –”

“Hush now, child. Rest. You and my son have a long road ahead of you.”

Unable to resist the invisible, comforting command, she allowed herself to slide further into the promised comfort. If not death, this, at least, would be a respite to the hell she was bound to return to.

==

Pain. Indescribable, burning, stabbing pain. Her reality splintered from the force of it, and she screamed so loudly her vocal cords felt like they were shredding themselves. A palm slapped over her mouth, now unbound at some point from the gag, and the voice shushed her – begged her – to quiet down. She was unable to comply until a smooth, cooling sensation overwhelmed the pain until it was bearable. The screams turned to wracking sobs. As it subsided further to an aching, nagging discomfort, her cries released themselves into hiccoughing sighs, stuttering from the shocking ordeal.

Satisfied she'd remain silent, or at least suitable subdued, the Voice removed the hand, and she gasped in great draughts of breathable air.

"Water," she rasped slowly, coughing when she tasted the coppery tang of her blood dried on her lips and teeth.

Within moments a hand cupped the back of her head, lifting her gently, and the rim of a metal cup touched her parched, cracked lips.

"Slowly. Small sips," said the Voice. "That's a girl, nice and easy."

She wanted to snort at this person's audacity to treat her like a small child and in that condescending tone but was too weak to bother.

Her thirst somewhat quenched, she was lifted and settled on a much softer surface, like a bed or sofa or large cushion. Voice covered her to her chin with warm fabric. "I've stabilized you, but my powers are limited in this cell. Your body will need to do some of the recuperating on its own. I will continue to treat you as my Seidr is replenished, and the only way that will happen is with adequate time. Sleep now. When you awaken, I will feed you a bowl of broth."

A hand covered her forehead, and she shook her head to dislodge it, wishing the damn blindfold had been removed. Voice whispered, "Sleep, pet. Sleep." Hermione drifted off, realizing her hands were no longer bound, but her arms felt like lead weights, like waking up after you've laid on them too long and they've gone dead asleep from lack of feeling.

A tingle could be felt in her legs and feet. Before she could analyze her body further, blessed darkness consumed her once more.

==

So weak. On fire. She was burning up, extreme thirst. These sensations greeted her as she woke once more, and she began to struggle, reaching out with awakened limbs that throbbed with renewed circulation. 

Voice shushed her, crooning in a sing-song cadence. Those hands vigorously rubbed the rest of the life back into her deadened lower limbs and _oh!_ How it _HURT_ – but she was so relieved she wasn't paralyzed that she ceased her struggling, and an anguished sob burst from her throat.

Voice immediately palmed her forehead. That same cooling sensation from before spread liquid bliss through her fiery brain and body. She slept once more.


	2. Chapter 2

I swear to god this IS finished. It had to be for the challenge. I've been having a hard time IRL over health issues so I'm going to try and upload the rest of this asap so you're not waiting :p. Thanks for your patience!

Chapter 2

Ravenous. That was her first feeling upon awakening from her latest bout of induced sleep. Keeping her breathing deliberately slow, and even as she tried to assess her situation, Hermione did her best to extend her senses. Pain? Only slight aches in her head, left leg, arm and belly. All ten of her toes still tingled, but otherwise felt normal when she wiggled them just a tad. Her ankle throbbed terribly. Warmth seeped into her back from a long body pressed into her from behind, and an athletically muscular arm draped possessively around her torso, coming to rest just under her breasts.

Hermione was unable to tell whether she was still in soiled clothing, although she could not detect the scent of excrement. Still, there was no immediate odor wafting about, so she assumed any mess had been dealt with by Voice. Her hands were still bound, but had been brought to the front, stretched out in front of her. Carefully, so as not to disturb Voice, she brought her fingertips to her eyes and pried the fabric from away from her face, wincing when crust and sleep peeled away with it.

At that moment, a soft sigh ghosted against her neck, and fingers tweaked her right nipple, rhythmic, in time to the soft snores in her ear. If she wasn't mistaken, that was a very impressive erection pressing against her bum.

Looking around, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the light in increments.

She lay on a somewhat comfortable cot, the arm at her waist decorated with braided leather bracelets at the wrist. Fine-boned fingers evidenced a delicate structure and grace. The cell – if that was, indeed, where they were – was stark—spartan to a fault. The light seemed to emanate from an unknown source magically. A chair sat in a corner with a stack of books piled next to it.

That was all she could see from her angle except for bedrock rising above them, and a sheer, unbroken surface of the same material directly across from where they lay. An outline that could have passed for a door stood out from the surface, but there didn't look to be a way in or out that she could discern. The inner cell they occupied was surrounded by a forcefield that buzzed and crackled faintly, shedding a slightly bluish tint that made the rock face appear quite pretty.

As soon as she attempted to lift the arm from around her body, the arm's owner tightened the grip possessively, securing her against a slim, muscular chest.

"Good morning, Darling," crooned Voice.

"What am I doing here?" she asked, tensing, unsure of Voice's intentions toward her.

"Relax, sweetheart. Let's have a bit of a lie-in, shall we? The guards won't be back for hours."

"I'm in a prison cell."

"Clever girl. Yes, and as luck would have it, with me."

"What crime are you serving time for?" she pressed.

"Come now. That's a bit of a personal question to ask when we've not even exchanged pleasantries or names. Tell me, what's your name, Darling?"

Hermione contemplated her options before responding, "I'm Jane."

Voice laughed in her ear, low and rich. "Of course, you are. I once knew a girl named Jane…." He trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging.

"Not anymore?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, you used to know her, but not anymore?"

"Ah. Alas, she's shuffled off the mortal coil. Such a shame."

Hermione allowed her eyes to shift back and forth. She bit her lip. "Are you going to let me get up?"

Voice sighed. "If I must. Although I must say, this has been the most pleasant awakening I've had in a very long time."

"Yeah, I can tell."

"Mmmm," he purred. "You can't blame a man when he's lain so close to a delectable female specimen. You smell divine, as well, Darling, now that I’ve made you presentable. Although I would have preferred longer hair on a woman."

That was it. She couldn't believe the audacity of this pig! Hermione rolled from the bed as swiftly as her injuries allowed, tearing herself from his grasp, and pleased she could bear her weight and wasn't the slightest bit dizzy or weak.

Voice flung his arms out to his sides, petulant. "You had to go and ruin a perfectly good cuddle."

"Forgive me if I don't feel like spooning with a stranger with my hands bound," she responded sarcastically.

"Easily remedied," said Voice, flicking a few fingers, so her bindings fell away into dust.

As she took in the man's appearance, she relaxed a bit but still maintained a defensive posture. "Where am I?"

"Psshhh, love, you're in my cell!"

"Yes, I can see that!" she spat out angrily. "Where are we? What planet are we on?"

Voice rose, sitting up smoothly, running his fingers over his clothing. It changed from a modest set of men's pajamas to a leather armor combination.

"How did you do that?"

Voice sighed. "Trust the Fates to saddle me with the most banal female in the Nine. You do ask the most tedious questions."

"Tell me where the fuck we are!" she shouted at him.

He rose to his feet, rising above her a foot or more. Great Merlin, he was tall! With a feral grin, he said, "And ruin the suspense? Never, Darling."

What an arse this guy was!

"Will you at least tell me your name?"

He paused dramatically, then grinned. "Fred."

"Fred? Riiiiggghhhhttt. Well, 'Fred,' nice cell you have here. I'm going to assume this is located in some isolation area, seeing as there are no other prisoners, at least, none I can hear or see. It appears highly secure, with advanced protections, and well hidden. For all I know, we may as well be in the middle of bum-fuck Egypt."

"Egypt? No. Your other observations, however simple," he stressed pointedly, "have merit." Then 'Fred' gave her a pronounced up and down studious sweep, like he was undressing her with his eyes. All with that arrogant smirk on his damn face.

"You know of Egypt. Well, that's something."

He frowned when she failed to rise to his bait as he tried to trick her into telling him where she was from. Then, he shrugged off his annoyance. More noteworthy, was the fact she assumed he _wouldn’t_ know of Egypt. A kernel of intelligence lurked behind that irksome mouth.

Hermione huffed. "I don't know about you, Romeo, but I need to use the facilities. If I could get something to eat, that would be great. It's been a pretty rough time, you know, almost being worm food."

'Fred' waved at the wall without looking, and another door appeared in the rock – wall, just an opening, really, roughly hewn with sharp edges. A rough-looking toilet rose from the very stone floor that was present as if carved with a gigantic chisel. Water ran from the ceiling on one side into a crack in the floor. It had the effect of a small waterfall but was much lower, a trickle.

Hermione walked inside and turned around, peering out at 'Fred' who was making a point to watch her.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all. Do proceed."

"This isn't a peep show, buddy!" She looked around for something to chuck at him but found nothing and let out an exasperated little scream and crossed her arms until her captor huffed and folded his arms, turning his back to her. "Fine. I shall seek our sustenance while protecting your virtuous privacy."

Damn, this guy! At least he hadn't overtly tried molesting her since waking up. He'd be in for a harrowing surprise if he laid one finger wrong.

When she emerged, she did a scan for her wand. "Fuck me," she grumbled under her breath.

"Darling, all you had to do was ask," the man taunted but didn't seem truly serious given he sat cross-legged facing the front of the cell, eating some type of finger food off of a wooden tray.

She ignored him and sat down. "What are these?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. It looked like peanut butter wrapped in the skin of a dead naked mole-rat. And it had eyes.

"I don't remember what they are called," 'Fred' told her, consuming another one whole. "It is one of the only foods served of substance and is very nutritious. I do not always know when or what I will be fed, so at times I have to save the extra I'm given in times of scarce means."

He appeared to be enjoying whatever it was, so Hermione took a deep breath, held it, and took a big bite out of one. "Hey, these aren't bad," she grinned, then scarfed down three more in quick succession. "Wow and filling too."

'Fred' smirked at her, hiding it behind his hand.

"What's so funny?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"Oh, you will find out in about twenty minutes," he told her cryptically.

"You are an extremely aggravating human being. Don't you ever give a straight answer?"

"It depends. I am not human."

That stopped her short, but only for a moment. "Depends on what?"

"On if I feel like it." Curious, once more, that she failed to comment on the ‘not human’ portion of his reply.

"I can see that having any meaningful conversation with you is going to be an exercise in herding cats."

"Hmmm," he dismissed, "so tell me. What bizarre set of circumstances led to your torn, bleeding, near-death, mortal carcass dropping from thin air into my cell? Don't mistake my question as impertinent," he cut in when she raised a finger at him and opened her mouth to speak. 

"I am grateful for the company after being alone for so long." For a moment, he looked melancholy, forlorn, then caught her staring at him, and that damnable grin was back.

"I'm not comfortable sharing that information with you right now. I hardly know you."

"Touché my Lady. Yet you expect me to divulge my secrets. It appears we are at a bit of an impasse."

The food consumed, he made the tray disappear and walked the two steps to the cot and lay down, sprawled out, ankles crossed and hands behind his head.

Hermione stood, hovering over him slightly, trying to figure him out. "I had a couple of things on me when I – uh – traveled here. You wouldn't happen to have found them, would you?"

"Maybe I have and maybe I –"

Hermione shrieked and leaped onto his chest, startling him, one knee pressing down on his breastbone and her hands circling his neck. 

The throbbing in her body intensified fiercely, but she ignored it in favor of pursuing an outlet for her wrath on this infuriating pest of a – whatever he was.

"I swear to God. If you do not give me a straight answer, I am going to hurt you!"

'Fred' seemed amused, although he had tensed, his hands steadfastly remaining at his sides. "Such violence from a petite thing like you."

"Don't mistake my size for weakness."

"I would never," he tried to charm her, but it failed, so he carried on. "Your little bag made of stringed beads is under the cot. I'm not sure what the belt was around your waist. It was torn to shreds, and if it had held anything, they'd been lost before your arrival. I used the remains of that to bind you."

That's where he'd gotten the leather. "Did you find anything else?" she asked through grit teeth.

"You mean there was supposed to be more? No, I'm afraid not. Just the bag – the remains of your belt – and of course – you."

She slowly climbed off of him, and he adjusted his position, a bit more wary this time, keeping an eye on her. "Damn. This sucks." Hermione pointed at him in warning. "You will not make one more sexual innuendo or I will –"

"-I know, you will hurt me terribly," he mimicked in a nasal voice.

"How did you heal me?"

Now he looked annoyed. "I know females of most species excel at nattering on, but must you make an example of yours? Leave me be."

"Fine. Maybe you'll feel like talking later after the guards come back and beat you again."

This angered him, and he leaped to his feet, stalking towards her, backing her near to one of the force fields, so it sparked and crackled at her back. "You will refrain from angering me, pet. Just as you expect respect, so you will earn it. I am not to be toyed with."

Her presumptive awareness of the guards knocking him around after he’d hid her when she’d first appeared, bothered him greatly. She should not have remembered that, much been aware, at the time.

"Fair enough." She lifted her chin in defiance. He went to turn but spun back, surprising her. "Oh yes. The next time you wrap your fingers around my throat, be prepared to finish the job. You won’t walk away from such an attempt again."

Now he did return to his cot, closing his eyes and turning away from her.

She sat in the one chair in the cell and picked up a book off the top of the pile. It was in a language she didn't understand or recognize. So were the next two. The third one was a murder mystery set in the realm of elves and was quite thick, so she lost herself within its pages for a good chunk of time.

The clanking of armoured boots and the sound of stone grinding on stone had 'Fred' on his feet in a flash like lightning, and he threw a hand over her mouth. He dragged her bodily to a niche in the stone next to the bathroom entrance. Tracing his fingers along an invisible line, a neat little cutaway appeared, and he rolled her in there, indicating silence. "Stay here. Under no circumstances must you come out until I retrieve you, even if you think I am hurt or dead. If you do not heed my words, your life will be forfeit."

"Okay," she whispered, suddenly terrified by the prospect of what was about to happen.

She was shut in. The familiar squeeze sent a shudder down her spine. It was the same space he’d first shoved her into that felt like a glorified coffin – for someone very thin. Hermione was petite, but by no stretch of the imagination a rail.

A guttural exchange of voices started up, and she heard the smooth, bright tones of 'Fred' reply in the same tongue. There was a sound, and she realized the force fields had been lowered. Two shouts echoed off the chamber, and she heard the sickening thud of body parts being pummeled either by fists, weapons or against the rock.

She squeezed her eyes shut, terrified she would be found out at any second, but no footsteps neared her hiding place. 'Fred’s’ cries of agony sounded again and again until they ceased, and then she heard the distinct thump of a body being thrown nearby, and the hum of the force fields being erected once more.

Hermione waited for what sounded like hours after the laughing voices receded, and all was still. She wondered if Fred were alive or dead, and figured she had to disobey his instructions. If he died, she had no hope of finding out where she was, much less, how to escape. 

Pushing against the seam of the opening where a thin sliver of light bled through resulted in no change. Trying to roll over only made her body wedge further into the crack until she thought she was stuck, one arm under her body. She felt around the floor of the tiny hiding place with her fingers, searching for anything that might aid her. Something smooth touched her pinky finger, and her spirit lit up like a Christmas tree.

Her wand! Teasing it out slowly, she finally got her pinky around the tip after an absolute eternity. Then another eternity passed until she could wriggle her arm free from under her body. Breathing a sigh of relief, she gasped, "Alohomora," and the rock face gave way, falling to the floor with an inelegant and deafening thud that echoed. She winced and froze, but when no one appeared, and she crawled out, replacing the stone carefully back into the wall until it was flush and unnoticeable once more.

'Fred' lay a few feet away, half on, half off the cot. If she hadn't been battle-hardened, the shock would have sent her screaming. "Fucking hell," she muttered, working quickly. It soon became apparent she was unable to cast more than low-level spells. Anything that required more power or intent seemed to leech energy off of her and into the surrounding rock. Instead of draining herself, she focused on low-level healing spells, moving her hands along his body, hoping that by easing the minor aches and pains, his body would rally enough muster to do the rest of the job.

Just the simple spells she used left her knackered, and she collapsed back onto the cot, dragging him with her, laying her head on his chest and falling asleep.

\--

Sometime later, she woke to his chuckling, a strained sound emanating from deep within his chest. Trembling fingers combed through her hair, and he started coughing violently. Jumping up to her knees, she retrieved her wand. She laid her hand onto his chest, concentrating as much as possible without allowing her magic to slip away. His cough immediately eased, and he groaned, sinking into the mat beneath him.

"You're a witch," he whispered, blinking tiredly up at her. His face was a complete mess, but he looked relieved.

She nodded, trying not to let the tears slip from her eyes.

"Thank you, Lady Jane. Your assistance. Is. Most. Appreci-ated," he gasped between deep breaths. Talking was an effort, so she put a finger to his lips, then impulsively leaned down and pressed her own against them, moving just a slight bit before coming away.

"What was … that for?" he asked tiredly, blinking slowly at her again.

"I want you to live. Consider it incentive."

"Done… darling. But you. Hardly even. Know…. Me," he gasped out the last bit.

Hermione caressed his cheek, and he leaned into it just the slightest bit. A sudden flash of memory assaulted her senses and was gone so quickly she had no time to outwardly react. _You and my son have a long road ahead of you,_ a maternal, soothing voice echoed in her mind.

Her eyes widened slightly in wonder, feeling a bright flash of recognition but not understanding its meaning. Instead, she simply replied, "I know you enough to care. Now, rest. I'll protect you."

"If they … come back…" but she shushed him, then placed her palm against his forehead, and he fell limp, the fact that he succumbed to the slumber so quickly worrying her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our pair open up to one another about their true identities, discuss their situation and learn more about one another.

Chapter 3

Hermione worried her lip, pacing the entire ten paces of the confines of the cell and back again. Inside she was terrified the guards would return – and she could hide- but what happened if she did, and they took 'Fred' away?

She wrinkled her nose and snorted softly. 'Fred,' really? Like she honestly believed that was his name. The guy wasn't even from Earth, or so he claimed. Well, whatever, it didn't matter. 

Hermione was famished. Speaking of which, she fetched her beaded bag and fished around inside for her miniaturized Cornucopia. It was a long-shot that it would work. If she was on a world other than Earth, which was entirely probable given the mythos of the Mirror she’d gone through, the rules of the Universe could render the Cornucopia useless.

The Cornucopia was connected to a grocer in her old neighborhood. She'd set up an exclusive account to deduct food purchases from her Gringotts Savings and Investment account.

Admittedly, she had no idea how much money was left in that account, praying that if it did work, the grocer was not only still in business, but that her account would sustain her – them – for the duration of their stay in this frozen hellhole.

Snorting at all the praying she’d been doing lately, given she was more spiritual than religious, she sent up another one that enlarging the item would work. It took a fair bit of concentration and energy drain, but she managed, breathing in a sigh of relief, then blowing it out again, hard.

Next, she mentally crossed her fingers and stuck her arm inside, rooting around, then pulled out a neatly wrapped sandwich. She whooped with glee, then reached in again and pulled out a carton of milk. _THANK FUCK,_ this thing still worked.

Now that was another tidbit of information she had to file away for a later date. Goodness knew her mind was already addled for having forgotten about her bag and the supplies. Wondering if the damage done to her brain was more than she’d initially supposed, Hermione grinned to herself. The supplies! With a sharp inhale, she slapped herself in the head and dug into her bag for potions – Healing, Pain Reliever, and a few others, then set about reviving her companion with a weak Enervate.

Another Thank Fuck for the extendable and other charms holding up inside, not encountering a huge mess. She’d spent a fortune on protection, cushioning and other enchantments that would keep her stuff intact during her journeys. With a heavy heart, she realized belatedly she shouldn’t have emptied out so much of her stuff prior to her Himalayan journey in order to have enough room to squeeze the Mirror into her bag. If she simply would have waited until the moment she found the Mirror, she’d have had a hell of a lot more to work with. As it was, she’d have to make do, making a mental note not to get cocky next time, if she lived to see another adventure.

Maybe it was time to close up shop, as it were, settle down somewhere with her research and publish some books? The man’s hurt noises brought the witch down from her mental contemplation.

His pitiful groan bit at her heart, but she struggled to sit him up, and he winced, gasping when she felt something shift inside that wasn't supposed to—a rib most likely.

Pouring one potion down his throat after another and massaging to help him swallow them completely, his eyes opened suddenly, clear as a bell, his wits about him as the fog of pain evacuated his body and mind. He scooted away from her, eyes wide.

"What the hell did you just do to me? That is NOT normal. No mortal should be able to heal me like that. The guards beat me so violently I lost consciousness, and I know from the look of you, the event wasn't that long ago. What are you? And what is your REAL name? No lies this time. Even a mortal witch doesn’t have that kind of power. At least, none my kind has ever encountered."

Ah, the gloves were finally coming off. Good. With a sly, internal smirk, she realized he hadn’t meant to give away more about himself, small a clue though it was, if his frown was any indication.

She vanished the empty potion bottles and said, "You're welcome. If you must know, I'm a witch, yes, although not of the garden-Muggle variety.”

 _‘Muggle,’_ his voiceless mouthing of the word tried out, shaking his head. “I am not familiar with the term, ‘Muggle.’ However, if it means you have the power – why haven’t you –”

“-Before you ask me to bust you out of here,” she interrupted rudely, cutting him off, much to his irritation, “I can't. I’ve tried. Only my most low-level spells work. Otherwise, my magical intent dissipates into the rock and robs me of it. My magical core is already terribly depleted simply from healing you."

"The same as I," he murmured low, probably not meant for her ears.

"My real name is Hermione Granger. I am a treasure hunter from England, which is on Earth."

"Midgard," he nodded. "I know of it. Rather well, unfortunately."

She cocked her head. "Midgard? You mentioned that before, I think. It's your turn to tell me who you are and where you're from."

He looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she came close to him, noticing him flinch when her wand aimed at him accidentally.

"Point that thing away from me, if you please," he asked tightly.

Hermione put it away and crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly.

“If I’d suspected what that thing was, I’d have snapped it in two before you had a chance to find it!” he hissed at her, still a little pissed she’d interrupted him.

Her glare became more potent, and Loki rolled his eyes. "Alright, then. I am Loki of Asgard. God of Mischief."

"Really? That’s brilliant!" Hermione squealed, doing a little dance. "I had no idea mythical figures were real! I mean, anything is possible, especially when you live in the magical world, and I've seen a lot of wicked shit, but to meet a real live God-"

"-and like a typical woman, you are unable to shut up," he finished sarcastically, rising to stretch, clearly unable to do so fully as he favored one side. He viewed the empty carton and sandwich wrapper with narrowed eyes. "Where did you get that?"

"Oh, this? My Cornucopia."

"You have had access to food and kept it from me?" he hissed, his intense gaze landing on her, then eyeballing the Cornucopia she produced, handing it to him.

"I forgot about it, dummy. You know, close to death and all?"

He ignored her and turned it around. "And it worked?"

"Duh," she smiled, taking it back. "Here, let me show you." She reached in and pulled out another sandwich, tossing it to him, and then a bottle of apple juice.

Loki looked suspiciously at the food as if she were trying to poison him. She could see his nostrils quivering, and hunger won out. Tearing the wrapping from the sandwich he stuffed almost the entire thing in his mouth, chewing obscenely, wrestling with the cap on the bottle of juice until she helped him figure it out, then poured the whole bottle down his throat, swallowing four times, then slammed it down next to him, groaning as if in pleasure. "Not bad, for mortal food. I've had worse. It's taken the edge off of my hunger."

He looked at it longingly. "Will you run out if I request more?" He sounded so hopeful.

"There's plenty," she fibbed, not really knowing, but glad to have turned his sour attitude on its head. Hermione bit her lip, recalling his title of ‘God of Lies,’ in addition to others, glancing at him. He didn’t seem to catch her ‘tell’, her eyes shifting to the side – that she was telling him an untruth. Damn. Had she forgot everything she’d been trained for? This place seemed to suck the commons sense right out of her.

"What is this?" he asked, turning it around, oblivious to her internal musings. "Tomato soup,” he read. “Is that an Earth delicacy?"

"Hardly. It's supposed to be heated up. I don't have anything to cook with here, though, it would be too much of a risk. You can eat it cold. They prepare it so that it's safe to eat right out of the can, although it’s not as good cold, at least, to me." She peeled back the top and handed it to him.

Without a second thought, he chugged that down also, made a face, and wiped his face on his sleeve.

"Vile, but palatable. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

They tidied the area in silence, then sat side by side on the cot, lost in thought. After a while, he turned to her, his attitude cautious, but the hope infectious as it bled from him in waves.

“What are you thinking?” she prodded, bouncing a little on the cot. The vivid emerald of his eyes captivated her, and she found it difficult to tear herself away from them.

"You are trapped with me in this place,” he began. “Yet you have a device that brings us foodstuffs from your planet. Would it be possible to send a message back through?”

Oh. Immediately her gaze fell from his, hands tightening into frustrated fists as she banged at the blankets.

“I take it from your silence and reaction that the answer is ‘no.’ Are you firm on that?”

She nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. Cornucopias are wonderful inventions, but the physics, and magics, involved don’t allow two-way communication. I suppose it’s possible it could be adapted, but I don’t have access to the information I’d need to investigate the possibility and theory.”

He nodded carefully, choosing, for now, to take her words at face value, assuming her intelligence simply from her appearance, survival and conversation from the short time he’d known her. Clearing his throat, he added, “You have been kind to me, when you could have ended my life while I was incapacitated. I will tell you of our current situation."

She looked at him expectantly, but he kept his gaze fixed on the opposite wall.

"We are on the planet, or Realm, of Jotunheim. It is ruled by Frost Giants. I suppose their society has its merits, but I know not much of those merits,” he sneered. “Without regaling you with the entire tale, I will inform you that I murdered their leader in cold blood, and they eventually caught up to and captured me. I am in this cell, awaiting execution. I do not know why it is taking so long, but they seem to delight in beating and torturing me with frequent regularity."

"Obviously you've found no escape route. I have a question."

"Ask away. I no longer have reason to toy with you. Although I must admit, it was a bit of sport for a time. It is rather dull in here."

"Where did all of those books come from?"

Loki frowned and scratched his head. "It's funny you should ask that. When I woke up in this cell, all that you see was already in place. It leads me to believe it was occupied and emptied before my arrival. A great layer of dust had settled upon it, so it has been some time since another’s been here. You've observed the odd assortment of literature? Some of it is fairly recent in terms of – my people’s standards, others rather ancient. I am fluent in most of the linguistics involved."

"Yes. I was curious about the writing in a few of them. I don't recognize the print."

"One is written in the language of the Frost Giants. I was never educated in their literature, so I am unable to read it, but I do speak a fair bit. Two are surprisingly in Old Norse, which I am sure you are familiar with – only these are the original language dating back to when some of our people colonized an area on your planet."

"The Vikings!" she exclaimed in wonder, and he nodded.

"Just so. They are fascinating to read, and if you like, I can teach you, that is, while there is still time."

"I'd love that!" she enthused, and they spent several minutes going through the subjects of the others, then fell silent once more.

"Once I am executed, if you are found, they will kill you. Frost Giants are not known for their leniency, or their hospitality, especially to those outside of their race."

"They made an exception for you, though, why?"

The question was valid, but damn, he cursed her powers of observation. The girl didn't miss a thing. After deliberating, he sucked in through his teeth and bit out, "I am one of them."

Instead of showing alarm, she placed a hand on his arm, yanking it back when he flinched away from her. "Did I say something?"

He shook his head, refusing to look at her. "In Asgard, Frost Giants are considered abominable. Hideous monsters. Mothers tell their children frightening tales of them, the beasts murdering others, causing war and mayhem, and destroying anything in their paths. I was – surprised you were not repulsed by my admission."

Hermione cautiously worded her next reply. "I didn't grow up hearing the tales you did. Therefore, I'm not biased against them. Tell me, are the stories true?"

"Some of them," he said stiffly.

"And the others?"

"Why do you push me so!" he suddenly raged, standing and striding away from her, hands placed over the small opening to the toilet facility.

"If we're to escape, I need to learn all I can about them, don't I?" She didn't allow herself to be cowed by him. He had deeper issues she was sure to remain unaware of.

Loki turned on her, his face savage. "They are monsters! _I_ am a monster! You should be afraid of me. I've done terrible things. Just maybe, I will do something terrible to **YOU**!"

Talk about instability. As calmly as possible, she answered him. "You seem determined to push me away. Our acquaintance got off to a rocky start, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

"Friendship," he scoffed, “is fanciful _sentiment._ That is all, nothing more. The only real feelings of worth in all of the nine realms are power, glory, lust, hate, the visceral feelings that make one feel alive."

"And love?" she countered, daring to greet his icy stare.

 _"Sentiment,"_ he hissed, turning away once more, although Hermione could swear she saw a hint of something more in the glitter of emerald before he tore his attentions from her.

"Well, Mr. Crabapple, I don't know about you, but I'm tired. I set a charm on the stone to alert us if there are vibrations. It might set off a false alarm but will also alert us if anyone approaches the door to the cell. I'm going to get some sleep, then figure a way to escape from this little hole in the ground. You may have given up, but I have a life to live, and I'm not going to die just because you are determined to."

She rolled over then and curled up into a ball, shivering slightly from the chill, but it was tolerable. Hence, she opted to save her energy for any escape plan she concocted. It didn't take her long to enter dreamland, and she felt refreshed when she awoke without any alert from her charm. Sitting up, she looked about and found Loki cross-legged, staring at the stone door.

"Do you ever sleep?"

"Yes. But not often. Only when necessary, or when I am injured."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

Retrieving her Cornucopia, she reached in and supplied them both with a hearty helping of random store foods, some decent in quality, some not so much, but they ate it all without complaint.

"I must apologize to you," he stated, finally wiping his hands on his leathers. "You continue to be kind to me, even when I take my anger out on you. None of this is your fault. You do not deserve to be the object of my wrath; although I admit, I am very curious how you ended up here to begin with. I take it, the journey was not one made voluntarily."

Avoiding his latter line of questioning, she replied, "We can work together." There. Neatly side-stepping his apology also allowed him to retain some small measure of dignity. "You know this place far better than me. There has to be a way to get out of here."

Loki allowed her reluctance to expand upon her story to stand silent – for now – then he snorted an indelicate sound and barked a laugh. "Unless you have the means to dig your way through solid bedrock, we are well and truly fucked, darling."

"Your attempt at levity is admirable, Loki," she smirked, "but it seems the joke is on you."

"You mock me?" he snapped, although more out of irritation.

"Not at all. You've just solved our problem. In fact, it was right in front of you."

"What am I to do? Tear the very walls apart with my bare hands? I can't make a dent in this damn stone! I’m a **GOD** you witless mortal shrew! Don't you think I've fucking tried?" he yelled, angry again, his eyes flashing. “What can you possibly do, you brainless, spineless, wretched piece of wasted space that I, Loki, God of Mischief, Chaos and Lies, have not already tried? You insult me with the mere suggestion!” he thundered, towering over her in an attempt to make her cower and submit, even angrier when she shrugged, twisted up her lips and darted out from under his arm.

"Quit getting your knickers in a twist, Oh God of Giving Up. Watch this."

She squeezed through the toilet facility hole in the wall, and he heard a sound like a small drill, chipping away at the stone. Sticking his head through and biting his tongue to keep from ripping into her with that last comment of hers, he watched in amazement, then delight, as her wand worked back and forth, the stone crumbling away beneath it like it was made of clay.

"The stone in Jotunheim is some of the densest in the Nine Realms! You are truly, a powerful witch!"

She kept working, sweat beading on her brow and upper lip from concentration. "Power means nothing in this place except that it’s like a mirror – the more you use, the more that is sucked away or reflected back to you. That’s why our stronger magical vibrations don’t work. A lot of times, the most obvious answers are the simplest ones, as you demonstrated. It would make sense to want to blast our way out of here. The – uh – Jotunheimer people have obviously thought of that and exploit it by keeping you here, and assume you think the same, which you do. You have to think differently."

"Do tell. Oh – and it’s Jotuns, not Jotunheimer."

"Well," she continued, pausing to stick her tongue between her lips, examine her work, then keeping on, "if you take a bundle of sticks together and try to break them all at once, it would be difficult, or impossible. When they are all bound together, they are stronger than when they are apart."

Loki grew excited and finished her theory. "Like a mouse, if you chip away at one a bit at a time, and separate the elements, they will fall to your persistence."

"Right in one."

"You have done well, oh Witch of Midgard," he praised, genuinely impressed. Then he looked at the pile of pebbles beneath her feet. "We need to discard this before it is noticed."

Hermione stopped, having carved out two steps from the bedrock. It seemed like such a small amount for the effort she'd expended, but the process couldn't be rushed.

"Throw it in the toilet," she answered, squeezing past him to lay on the cot once more.

"And fill it in?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" she called out, and he raised a finger.

“I have seen you make our foodstuff debris disappear with your – your wand.”

“It doesn’t really disappear. It goes into my beaded bag.”

“It’s so small. How can it fit in there?”

“Extendable charms and such. I’ll show you later. There’s a lot of space in there, but that will run out eventually, too. If I fill it up with all of the rocks, even my charms will bust, then the entire contents of the bag will bury us under garbage, rubble and my remaining supplies.”

Loki was silent, digesting this information. He set about clearing the big debris, then emerged, dusting off his hands.

"I've done as requested. If we fill in the space beneath, we will have reached a dead end, with no way to conceal our escape attempt. I have no idea how deep it extends. At this point in time, even my enhanced hearing cannot detect an impact or bottom to the pit."

Hermione smiled inwardly, satisfied she seemed to have eliminated his fatalistic view and joined her in believing there was a possible route of escape. Although he seemed easily provoked to heap verbal abuse upon her person, he hadn’t struck her or tried to outright restrain her again. She could deal with that, but if he tried hurting her again, God or no, she would make him regret it. Or attempt to, anyway.

Loki sat next to her on the cot, placing a hand on her arm. "Is there anything more I can do to help?"

Immediately she shook her head in negation. "Not unless you can transfer some of your magic to my core. It depletes quickly in this environment. Whatever forces are at work here dampen my efforts. It feels like I have to push through a thick layer of mud to get anything to work."

"I – I might be able to do that. Sleep, for now, and let me think about it for a bit. If it's not done carefully, I could drain my reserves, or overload you so your core would burn out."

"I doubt there is that much in either of us to reach either extreme, but it's a reasonable precaution. Goodnight, Loki. Don't go anywhere," she teased, closing her eyes.

He rolled his own but smiled indulgently. At last, after so long in this hellhole, there was a beacon he could grab onto, and maybe he would escape with his sanity intact. If the Jotuns didn't kill him first, he knew this was one person he wasn't letting slip from his grasp if they made it out together. She was too valuable. 

Another small incentive? Loki was beginning to like her. Just a little bit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our couple faces some extreme difficulties within their Hel-ish prison. A turning point emerges, a crux at which Loki realizes the true extent of his feelings for his unexpected cell-mate - and the excruciating realization he cannot live without her, even as she begins to slip away.

Chapter 4

Slight warning: This is a more graphic, feel-y, gritty and brutal chapter than the three previous. Take heed of the tag warnings, and if you are faint of heart, maybe read a bit at a time so you aren't overwhelmed. Extreme feels ahead, ahoy.

\---

The work was tedious, grueling and exhausting, but rewarding. Each step hewn from the sheer rock left Hermione with a sense of accomplishment that no assignment or perfect test grade ever had. She was fighting for not only her own life but that of a legendary God. 

His attitude had gone from prickly and piggish to gentlemanly and solicitous. Although there were some scary moments with his mercurial mood swings that erupted in insane bouts of crying, shouting, raging and gibbering in terror, they were not in evidence often. Hermione’s presence seemed to calm him more quickly than when she initially left him to suffer alone for fear of him injuring her.

Compassion won out.

They debated philosophy, politics, psychology, art, culture, socio-economic dynamics in varying societies, and other topics of interest. 

There seemed no end of material with which to fill the heaps of dead time spent resting in-between the work contributing to their escape attempt, exercise, sleep and the occasional appearance and taunting of the guards, all of which ended quickly, thankfully.

Until another fateful day.

One big brute whom Loki had explained was like a captain of the guard, even though she had no way of seeing the Jotuns from her hidey-hole, liked to beat on him the most when the mood struck him.

Today seemed to be one of those days.

Whatever had set him off, Loki quickly received the brunt of the beasts’ frustration, Hermione wincing in time with the blows, grunts, and the obvious crack of broken bones. She didn’t even want to contemplate the strength it took to break the bones of a God.

When they finally discarded him, he was in worse shape than before. At first, Hermione feared he may be dead. 

“No, no no! Please be breathing, please be alive!” she begged, an unfamiliar emotion welling in her breast. “This can’t be happening!”

She was already tired from an extra-long session at digging earlier that day, and Loki had yet to infuse her with his Seidr, as he called it. If he was alive, that fact just might be what saved his life. The Asgardian seemed to heal from within, his Seidr being a prime component of that ability, like a super-charged internal battery.

She worked feverishly over him, conjuring as much as she dared, using some of the very low stores of potions she had left. At this rate, they’d be out long before they finished their stairway.

Loki had told her his previous recoveries took much longer, but he had never been beaten this badly, either. He took it as a bad sign the last time that the end was drawing near. If this beating was any indication, she feared he was right.

Her tending of his wounds was frequently interrupted by the guards randomly checking on him. She was forced to leave him where they’d tossed him, even going so far as to reopen a few wounds she healed when the suspicious Jotuns rushed out to get another who inspected Loki, ranting at the guards.

Still, it made zero sense, whatsoever, that they didn’t just finish him off. Hermione guessed they were under orders to torture him, possibly leave him for dead, but not purposely kill him.

From a peephole she had made in the bathroom area carefully concealed by rock-camouflaged gauze Loki had fashioned out of her supplies and some Seidr, she noted this one looked like some kind of Healer.

The tribal markings were fascinating. It was the first glimpse she’d had of the beings. Was this how Loki looked in his natural form? The one time she’d asked him about it, he blew up and nearly took her head off, so she never asked him again. Still, it was her natural curiosity to burn, itch really, to see him if he ever trusted her enough to show it to her.

With extreme trepidation, she realized she was shaking violently, her beaded bag lay right on top of the cot. Holding her breath, which didn’t really help but did keep her exhalations at a minimum, Hermione could only cling to faith that they would _not_ die like this. 

Surely, the Universe couldn’t, wouldn’t, be so cruel as to let her come so far, only to perish in this icy prison? 

The Healer roughly shoved the others away, exchanging blows, grunting at them and shouting before they left, only one staying behind at the exit to the cavern. Hermione wished she had a clearer view so she could see, if anything, was beyond that stone door. Of course, it was impossible from her angle and with the camouflage in the way.

Instead, she focused on the actions of the Healer. He grumbled to himself, not unlike a regular being unhappy with a situation. She was pretty sure the Jotun was male. All of the utterings had been very guttural and deep thus far, not indicating what she would understand to be female, and Loki hadn’t indicated otherwise.

He didn’t seem to be hurting Loki. In fact, he actually looked to be bandaging and setting the worst of the injuries. Pulling something from in a loose tunic, he brought out an implement and jar, uncapping the lid, applying ointment or salve to the instrument and liberally applying it to the rest of the open cuts.

At long last, as her back was starting to cramp, the Healer dragged Loki to the cot and none-too-gently laid him upon it, going so far as to bring the blanket over his still form. She could barely see from this angle, now, and wondered why the Healer was lingering.

A shout from the exit had him uttering a gruff reply and lightly trotting, for a being of his size, back to the exit while the shielding buzzed back to life around their portion of the cell.

The door was dragged shut and she waited for what seemed an eternity before poking her head out, cautiously crawling over to the cot and onto it to examine Loki’s injuries. Fishing beneath him gingerly, she brought out her beaded bag. Had the Healer seen it? He’d have to have been blind to miss it. If he had seen it, why hadn’t he taken it or raised the alarm? A Healer also would have noticed the mends she’d made on Loki’s person, despite the very minor illusions she’d cast to hide some of the more obvious detail.

Those questions would have to wait as she checked over her cellmate. The Healer wouldn’t have treated Loki if he were dead, of that, she was sure.

Sure enough, she detected respiration and heartbeat. The thumping was a bit thready, breathing weak, but he would make it – she hoped.

\--

It was fortunate Hermione had arrived with the cornucopia, as the Frost Giants had provided Loki with no meals for what Hermione counted as fourteen days after his latest beating. Maybe they had hoped to kill him in his weakened state via neglect. They certainly did try. 

A few times she’d heard pounding and the door starting to grind open, making a dive for the hiding space, but each time it fell silent, with no one entering. Another puzzle she hadn’t time to ponder.

The first time Loki came to, he had a raging fever, face bright with pain, his two worst bone breaks swollen and ugly. Broth was the only thing he could stomach at that point in time.

His hallucinations proved somewhat enlightening, but only served to puzzle her more in the end.

Clearly, he missed his mother. She was the person he spoke to the most. Evidently, if his dreams were true, she was also dead. Poor thing. 

She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

A quiet pang echoed in her heart, as she dearly missed her own parents. The gentle voice from her dream, she’d decided it had been, kept returning to her. She wondered if Loki’s mother sounded as angelic as the one that had spoken to her while she was unconscious.

The next time he woke, Loki raged at Hermione, accusing her of injuring him, putting him in prison, spying for the Jotun to slowly torture him to death with her feminine wiles. It made no sense. At first it was kind of cute, in a homicidal, _I’m a God and I’m going to Crush You like an Insect,_ sort of way. When he tried to hit her and would have succeeded if she hadn’t bent over to get something out of her bag, she was forced to restrain him, which also involved re-breaking one of his limbs.

Loki cried out as she slammed a rock against the offending limb. It was healing badly anyway. Tears streamed down her face in icy rivulets when he shrieked against the leather braid she’d stuffed into his mouth so he didn’t bite through his tongue in agony.

Digging deep into her photographic memory from medical texts she’d read for fun both at home with her parents and while in the infirmary as her stint as a cat, as well as the Hogwarts library, Hermione was forced to knock him out, nearly smothering him with the effort. Using the very last of her potions stores, she performed minor surgery on him with the crude items they’d fashioned from leftovers that their food came packaged in. 

Many of the items were more than likely contaminated. Sterilization would have taken more energy than she possessed, and required a higher level of expenditure, so she’d have been unable to perform it effectively, anyway.

Another damn prayer went up to the Universe this time, that his biology would stave off the worst of anything foreign that got into his system.

Infection set in days later, and she kept lancing it, sucking it out and spitting it away into the toilet until she, herself, became sick, languishing with a fever next to him, crawling to the toilet and puking down the hole, gathering water with the last of her strength and returning to feed it all to him, only to pass out on his chest again.

It was a bloody miracle they weren’t found together.

Time was lost to the pair, more so to Hermione, who no longer marked the passage of it, especially once she was knocked unconscious by the infection that had taken root in her nervous system.

\--

Loki woke with a gasp, sweat-stained, stinking, sore and obviously still injured to a fault, but alive. How in the Nine did he survive?

One look at the mortal witch next to him provided the frightening answer.

Ashen-gray, her face looked like death as her breath rattled. Bits of puss leaked out around swollen, cracked lips, and a noticeable trickle of energy flowed from her fingertips into his where they’d been bound together and linked with a very weak, but holding, transfer charm.

She was literally bleeding her core dry in order to save him.

“Of all the stupid-!” he started to rant, unwilling to admit the swelling in his chest that forced tears from his eyes, as he quickly assessed his mental and physical faculty.

In a matter of days he would be fully healed once more. The witch, from his assessment, would not make it if he didn’t act quickly.

Healing himself was one thing – healing another was not a specialty he’d paid attention to closely during his course of studies. Now he damned his late-blooming interest in maidens for faulting his lack of knowledge in the Healing arts. Damn and double damn!

Loki had learned that occasionally, non-food items would slip through the Cornucopia. Most of them were worthless – plastic inventions – straws, she called them. Their function was to place in drinks and suck the liquid through them. They’d folded bits of paper from peeled-off labels and had a very undignified, so-called ‘spit ball’ fight with them on more than one occasion.

A bottle of cough medicine had been saved and discarded when they opened it only to find a tamper-evident seal had been broken. Hermione warned it might have been altered, so to be on the safe side, they threw it out, or rather, into her rapidly filling bag.

Loki chewed his lip, unsure if he dared risk pulling too much from the magical device. Hermione had been forced, for practicalities sake, to concede to him she didn’t know how much money was left in her account. Unbeknownst to her, good old Harry was keeping tabs, replenishing it when it ran low, as she’d given him guardianship over her holdings and power of attorney if something happened to her.

Deciding to risk it, Loki started pulling out goods – canned, junk food, some fresh vegetables – rare for some reason – and quite a few items he hadn’t seen before. As the pile grew, he became more and more desperate to find something of use. Did the damn mortals never stock anything of value for mending their sick and injured?

After he had a pile almost as large as himself, he lamented his wastefulness, well aware the majority of it would spoil, unable to be eaten raw, before they had a chance to consume it.

Tossing the stupid, lone bottle of medicine against the barrier, he winced as the medicine bottle cracked down the middle. Loki panicked, rushing to rescue it and hating how weak he felt, how slow his limbs and response time was. How long had he been out?

Forcing himself to slow down, Loki deliberately sat on the stone floor and centered himself, ignoring the nagging pull of half-healed muscles and bone, going deep within to the point where his ego and soul met Seidr, something he’d not done for a very long time.

He wasn’t even sure if he could in this wasteland environment but found it easy enough to reach. Perhaps it was his birth connection to the planet? Whatever the case, Loki used the link to travel along his life’s cord, like a golden umbilical cord connecting him to Yggdrasil.

Here and there he could see where the most grievous injuries were, making note to touch upon them first when he’d regained more of his Seidr.

He could _see_ the pool of magic, just beyond his reach. Well, within his reach, but the inability to wield it felt like grains of sand slipping, sluicing through his fingers, helpless to hold and utilize more than a few grains at a time.

Loki’s frustration began breaking apart his concentration. His mental flailing added to the sensation of drifting back to consciousness, the Asgardian desperately clinging to the golden cord. He could practically see the answer to his problems, and with monumental effort, re-structured his breathing as his mother had taught him. Relaxing once more into the sensation of drifting, an almost-helplessness sensation he normally abhorred, Loki allowed it to pull him along as a tide until he came alongside a power he recognized instinctively as Hermione’s.

_His Hermione,_ a little voice suggested that he instantly swatted away, unwilling to examine it too closely.

Instant swirls of black and red shot from her brilliant blue and silver cord, threads unravelling every which way as infection ate at her from the inside out.

“No! Mother! I cannot lose her! What more can I do? I swear, if you help me save her, I will do anything! Anything!”

Silence consumed him, and then the flood of tears, long-held in for every tragedy he’d caused, suffered or witnessed crashing down upon him, a tidal wave of regret, revulsion and self-pity. He was sorry. For himself and every damn thing he’d selfishly done, including getting himself imprisoned by the very people he was raised to hate.

“Loki,” came a voice.

“Mother!” he cried out, casting about, held now in the poisonous web trailing out of his companion’s life force, trapping him in her agony, sharing it with him.

“Open yourself to her. Take her sickness into your soul. You are pure, Loki.”

“I am not! I am evil, unwanted, even Father never wanted me! You know this! You kept it from me!” he raged into the nether.

“This is untrue, my son. Your beliefs do not equal reality. Long have you held these malevolent thoughts close to your breast, nurturing them instead of releasing them.”

“They are all I have!”

“No, Loki. They are what you have allowed to define you. Seek a new truth, with her, with the witch. She is The One that complete you, the way you need and crave, but first you must heal yourself, and only then will she be saved. If you refuse to let go of your past, you will kill her- and yourself, before your jailors ever reach you.”

“How, Mother?” he asked, pulling himself mentally along the thin golden and silver thread now connecting them. Even in death, she reached out for him, as she always had, both on her journey to his realm and in every state of mind he’d thrown at her. Open arms were all she’d ever shown him.

“Let go. Love her, and let go. Your Seidr will do the rest. Hers is Calling to yours. Heed the Call, Loki. It will guide you home.”

“I love you, Mother! I am so sorry!”

“My fate was never in your hands, Loki. The Weavers told our stories long before we were born into existence. Do not be sorry. Listen to me, and you will honor my memory. Further our line. Take the throne, with her by your side as Queen. Bring permanent peace to the Nine, or all shall be lost.”

_“MOTHER!”_ he screamed, but she was gone. Immediately he wanted to push away everything she’d said. How could it all not have been his fault? How could he ever not shoulder the blame?

A subtle poking at his consciousness broke through, so slight and breathy he wouldn’t have noticed it if he wouldn’t have been so raw, defenses almost non-existent from this mental and spiritual journey.

“Loki? Please, help me. I need you.”

“Hermione! I’m here! My love! I’m here!”

A whisper of a hand ghosted to him from within her band of energy, and he willed himself to believe in it, pulling himself forward until their cores connected, brilliantly twining together as two halves of a whole found each other and rejoiced.

There was no description for what happened next, except all ugliness, illness, everything rotten purged from their cores, both magically and physically and spiritually. For a short time they were one in spirit, and Loki came in great, heavy ropes released in his trousers, unaware physically of the euphoria mending their mutual brokenness.

When they came to, he was on the floor, and Hermione was in his arms. They both stunk to high heaven, were dirty and covered in muck and bodily fluids, and to his great embarrassment, him in a cooled release, but they were alive.

Hermione opened her eyes, blinking slowly at him, coming out of a dream. 

“I love you too,” was all she said before falling upon him and taking his lips in her own, kissing him like her life depended on it. And it did.

Both of theirs did. They’d bonded, they’d healed, they were connecting.

Now, they had to finish digging their way out of this icy pit of their own personal Hel.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tentative, fragile understanding is reached between the two. They continue to survive, and the difficulties they face continue to mount, including the sexual tension that now arcs between them yet remains untouched.

The brand-spanking-new understanding between them was tentative, fragile, so newly born they both danced around it on eggshells, proverbially speaking.

Although they’d both hoped their mystical journey would have somehow allowed them greater use of their respective power, the former laws that bound their magic/Seidr held true upon their mutual recovery.

Loki couldn’t even tell he’d been beaten so badly. Hermione felt at her best physical, peak condition. 

She burned with lust for him, unfamiliar to her after so long without companionship, but she was too shy to risk pushing him away after all that had transpired. 

It was difficult for Loki to process so much emotion, especially after opening himself up to her in such an expansive manner he’d had no control over – well – some – but once he’d decided, so much more than he ever dreamed was shared with her.

The mortal knew of his origins, his form, his history, and she understood now why he needed the little space she could give him until he was ready to talk.

He saw her harrowing journeys and struggles, the great war heroine she’d become, unwilling in her own right but still rising to the challenge in her world’s time of need. His respect for her grew exponentially literally overnight.

He blanched, nearly losing it when the Yeti nearly came upon her and she’d allowed herself to fall through the Mirror. Loki didn’t know where the relic had come from, but it was definitely very, very old. Odin would probably know, the old fool.

The Asgardian was very, very aroused. Every single sense was attuned to her movements, sounds, even the way she smelled.

Lost not only within themselves at this latest discovery, they had thrown themselves back into the work, double-timing efforts and energy exchanges until they were both exhausted to the point of foolishness once more. Anything to avoid breaching the bond begging to be secured, as they continued the ridiculous postponement that would mean joining completely, physically, and sealing his life to hers permanently.

Slowly but surely, food still arrived through the Cornucopia, but they had a new problem – Hermione’s beaded bag was almost filled to the brim with garbage, and she warned him again that if it exploded, they’d drown in the garbage. 

After they had started throwing the debris from their construction efforts down the hole, they’d continued putting the Cornucopia refuse into her beaded bag, just in case the toilet was filling in and they were unaware, as still no sound, sight or smell was detected each time they checked.

Worrying herself stupid, Hermione’s worst fear came to pass when items started randomly puking from the mouth of her bag before it ceased its’ expelling of garbage.

Checking the state of her charms, she was distraught when she discovered her charms were collapsing, the protections fading, and the last of the power infused in the bag used up just to hold things together.

Her only solution was to throw it down the black hole and hope the charms lasted, not knowing what in Helheim would happen if it burst below them. It would have taken far too much time, energy, magick and advanced knowledge to repair it properly.

She cried over the loss, and they started tossing their trash down the hole. They still couldn’t ascertain where it ended, so along with their other endless hopes, relied on the toilet as their personal garbage can, literally.

Loki got lucky one day and pulled a large strip of uncured leather from the Cornucopia. Hermione laughed, telling him that sometimes Muggle hunters came in and traded hides for goods. The general store served both the magical and Muggle communities.

Losing the remains of their tattered, beyond-repair clothing, they fashioned wearable items out of it, not much covering either of their bodies. It remained quite cold although temperate enough that Hermione had grown used to the lower temperature. However, she still kept the fraying blanket wrapped around her out of necessity unless she was working or exercising.

The Jotun wished she would lose it more often. He missed seeing the bare curves of her body, admiring her scars, imagining what she looked like under the flimsy coverings, unable to get a clear view from the memories they had shared when she’d looked in a mirror back home. He knew if they did escape, it would be impossible for her to survive in the frozen wasteland that was Jotunheim without greater protection from the elements.

For the moment he forestalled telling her, although he was sure she had a pretty good idea it was an eventuality, having shared many of his memories.

Little by little the icy politeness unthawed between them and they relaxed once more. It was worrying no guards had so much as let out a peep during this extended time frame they’d recovered and worked.

It was almost their undoing, however, when Hermione and Loki almost overlooked one fatal flaw in their planning. It could have cost them Loki's life and discovery, the longer time went on, and the more comfortable they became in their new dynamic.

Loki was tickling her, Hermione shrieking with laughter, rolling and squirming to get away from him when her charm buzzed an alert. She negated it, gathered her things, and proceeded to slide into her hidey-hole when a horrible thought occurred to her – Loki was _not_ supposed to be looking healed and well-fed. 

This very extended period of time probably would have him looking, if not dead, very close to it. A stone dropped like lead into the pit of her stomach, and she rolled back out, ignoring his pleas of alarm for her to hide.

"Loki! I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?"

Without hesitation, which he would later examine and wonder over, he told her, "Yes, of course," and she had him hold still. 

“I’m sorry. I have to hurt you.”

“Just do it!” he hissed, steeling himself grimly as she went to work.

In a flurry of activity, she beat the living shit out of him with a series of kicks, punches, and throws then cast a weak glamour that made him appear emaciated and his clothing torn.

It frustrated her greatly, another two or three days’ worth of energy and magic wasted on this ridiculous but necessary façade.

"Thank you, I think. You have some explaining to do later," he panted from the ground where she'd tripped him, and he didn't get up.

She nodded and rolled into her niche, closing the entry just in time to hear the scraping of the boulders against the stone, and only a few feet stomping towards this enclosure this time.

The visit was blissfully brief, if tension-filled, the energy barrier lowered, a thump of something hitting a wall. Jotun voices raised in raucous laughter, shouting something in their language, then an angry, familiar one rising above them all. 

The Healer. He sounded irate, and Hermione wished she’d thought to secure herself in the toilet, doing her best to strain her hearing to figure out what was going on.

The cot scraped over the stone, then only some muffled grunts and what sounded like foreign chants sounded. Her neck ached badly from the angle as she held it against the stone, nearly freezing her ear off as she held it for an extended time to catch every nuance of sound.

A heavy sound like dragging, muffled, came through and more arguing. Shouting, clanging, the energy barrier being put back into place, then silence.

Loki’s soft laughter rang out, indicating it was safe for her to emerge.

As soon as she was clear, stretching out the kinks, she glanced over and was immediately disgusted by the half-eaten carcass of a beast that looked like a cross between a bear, a dog, and a horse. At least it was frozen.

"What the fuck is that thing?" she asked, leaning to help Loki up from where the Healer had left him on the floor. It didn’t escape her notice that he’d been left a bundle, to be explored momentarily.

He kicked her feet out from under her and pinned her down, surprising her with his strength and agility after the beating he’d taken. However, she'd witnessed before when he'd demonstrated some of his superior abilities, he enjoyed taking her by surprise.

"I don't care if you are a God, you let me up right now, Loki!" she ranted, pushing at his chest ineffectually.

Loki leaned in close, his breath mixing with her own, and he hissed, "The next time you beat the shit out of me without cause, I will return the favor," he threatened, Hermione realizing belatedly she’d done a little too good of a job, and he seemed serious from the fiery spark in his emerald stare.

"Let me explain!"

"Yes, please do it and quickly. I'm not in the mood to be toyed with. You could have been discovered, and it was unwise to weaken me against them."

"I had to!" she shouted back at him, pushing against his firm chest once more, not liking the feeling of being pinned like an insect. 

"Remember how badly they beat you the last time? They haven't brought you food for weeks! Do you think it might have looked just a little bit suspicious if they'd come in here and seen you hale and hearty? If you think they beat you badly before, they might have completely killed you if they even so much as suspected their last attempt hadn't been effective in making you suffer, much less kill you! The Healer did _not_ heal you to the point of health you are at now."

The unholy glitter faded from his eyes, and he drew in a smirk, letting her up with a pat to her stomach. "You are a clever mortal. My time here has addled my wits."

"I'll give you a 'clever mortal' you shit," she argued back, kicking him in the shin, provoking him.

Her efforts were successful, and he spun on her like a rabid tiger, taking her down to the cot, shaking her against the newly-replaced mattress, another curiosity in the growing wonders and mysteries surrounding their imprisonment and treatment. 

"I warned you not to toy with me," he huffed, but she could see just a hint of a curve at the corners of his mouth.

"Who said I was playing? I was terrified you were going to die! Here, let me up, and I'll heal you. I'm so sorry I had to do things that way, but my instincts are usually right."

"Lucky for me," he purred, then gave her a very pointed sweep of his sinful eyes, his meaning clear.

"We – we should cut up that nasty thing they threw in here and get rid of it."

He tolerated her stalling, shifting a little so she could breathe more easily. "Only bits at a time, and make it look like it's been torn at by bare hands and teeth. Remember, I have had nothing to eat for weeks, and am a starving …. Man…." He finished, licking his lips provocatively.

Hermione knew he was attracted to her quite fiercely, but so far, they'd been able to avoid this ticking time bomb of sexual tension between them. She debated whether to give in to his apparent signals or play it off and push him away. If she did, she knew he would honour her and let her up. 

Part of her wanted to be pinned, to find out what it was like to be fucked by a God. In her heart, she was ready. Protection was non-existent, but she needed to feel him in her worse than she needed oxygen.

"I'm afraid," she whispered, licking her lips.

Up until this point, he had never heard her admit such, not in regard to his treatment of her. To clarify, he gave her an out. "Are you afraid of me, Hermione? Or are you afraid of what I could do to you if you allowed me to?"

"The latter," she replied, licking her lips self-consciously. His eyes flicked to her wet lips, and back up, darting back and forth between her and the pink flesh, intent on making her submit.

"I want you, woman. I've wanted you from the first time you fell on me from out of thin air. It would have been so easy to kill you, but I have been so alone, desperate for any connection, for affection, I let you live. I am very, very glad that I did. I burn for your touch, and if I am correct, you burn to taste the sexual hunger of a God."

He had never spoken to her so provocatively, and it made her slick instantly, his voice dropping a full register as he pressed against her hip, intent on showing her just how much she excited him.

Even though it wasn't necessary at this point, he continued to try and convince her. Loki didn't know she'd already made up her mind to let him have her. 

"I could die any day now. Or we could be discovered. Don't you wish to experience a level of intimacy you've never dreamed of? I can make you feel like a goddess, push your body to heights and keep you there until you beg me to let you go, passing out from blissful, orgasmic ecstasy. Make your spend weep like an answered prayer onto my tongue, taking your nectar into my very being, and worshipping at your fountain until it runs dry. You will be a quivering ruin in my arms."

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. If he kept that up, she was going to explode just from the prose rolling off him.

She fisted the front of his makeshift tunic and shook him slightly. "Shut up and fuck me before I go mad."

"Gladly, Darling," he replied.

A/N: Don't kill me – smut in 3, 2, 1…..


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the imprisoned couple cross the threshold of lust they've held at bay for so long. The respite, however, is short-lived.

Chapter 6

The sexual tension between them practically exploded, lips coming together hard, kissing with frenzy, unable to get enough of one another. Loki hated to feel such urgency for haste but needed to be inside of her before he ejaculated in his trousers and embarrassed himself. The prince had no need to worry she would resist, as she was already peeling her garments down her hips and kicking them off the end of the cot.

"Inside. Now." Her voice quivered, and he nodded in understanding, beginning to work quickly and efficiently on his own meager attire.

Waffling over an inane desire to warn her, he relented, frustrated with this stupid compulsion to explain himself prior to taking action. "My manhood is probably larger than you are accustomed to. Asgardian males are significantly more well-endowed than those on Midgard."

"I've had big dicks before.” She snickered a little bit behind one hand. “Honestly? Nobody says 'manhood' anymore. That's ancient history."

"I'll be sure to make a note of it in my diary," he drawled sarcastically, sneering at her deliciously.

"Do you always talk this much before sex? I’d really like to get on with it."

“By all means, do not allow mean to dissuade you from assuming the position.”

“Which would be?” As she replied, Hermione laid back on the bed, running her fingers up her legs, wincing at the hair that had grown out. 

Typically, she wasn’t self-conscious about things like that, but now, she was about to get laid by an actual Norse God, and her self-esteem wavered a tiny bit.

Determined to make him crazy, she licked her lips and laid back, tugging on her own nipples and rubbing her thighs together in an invitation, giving him a peek of her treasure.

Loki didn’t seem to mind at all. "Naughty vixen," he delighted, moving between her lovely thighs and pushing them apart. Her labia were already leaking, generously coated with thick arousal. When he slid the head of his cock between her pussy lips, he had to push his fingertips to the base of his cock and hold his breath, squeezing it tightly to keep from orgasming prematurely.

Hermione mistook the gesture as her doing something wrong, and she tried to wriggle out from under him.

"Stay still!" he ground out. "I've never had a woman make me respond so viscerally I've nearly spilled myself before I've breached her."

Relaxing, she reached down and squeezed his ass, laughing when he shot her an angry look. "I mean it!"

"Loki," she said softly, no longer teasing. "It is very flattering that you are so attracted to me and that I make you respond this way. Let it go. Get your first leg over, then we'll start again."

"My leg over?" he echoed her, turning the phrase around in his head like ball bearings grinding against one another, unable to comprehend what she was asking of him.

"Yeah. Come all over my pussy, then I'll suck you hard again."

His eyes rolled up, and he swore in old Norse at her, a stream of bliss forcing its way past his fingertips and fountaining over her pubic mound. "Sexy, fucking mortal, you belong to me now," he ground out, pressing his ejaculate into her seam, rubbing it up and down over her clit and pubic hair with the head of his cock. Then he scooped up a dollop and commanded her to open, letting her suck his flavor off of one finger.

She panted with lust, wiggling her hips under him. "I hope that being a God has other perks," she teased, and he cocked his head.

"Such as?"

"A quick recovery time?"

Loki smirked. "Oh, Dearest, you are in for a treat. By the time I'm done with you, you will be begging me to stop. I can make love for hours on end, never tiring, my seed renewing itself in minutes, staying hard as Asgardian steel while pumping into your aching, well-oiled, begging cunt."

"I want to suck you."

Loki was extremely grateful at that moment that he’d gotten off once already. That phrase alone was an ultimate aphrodisiac to any Asgardian male, who frequently had to beg for it, even within a well-established relationship.

"With pleasure."

He eagerly sat up, and she knelt before him, lowering herself. Hence, her face was in his lap, and sure enough, his prick was still hard, perhaps a bit tired from its first expulsion of surprise. Again, it did nothing except respond like an over-eager flagpole the moment her lips touched the tip.

"Yes, mortal, suck me."

"If you call me mortal one more time I'll-"

"I know, I know!" he interrupted irritably. "Suck me you sexy bitch," he snarled then, remembering some of the other vernacular he’d picked up on Midgard, trying to get a rise from her, but it only turned her on more, and she hummed her approval while slipping half his length into her mouth.

"Oh, yes, that is very nice," he moaned, guiding her head gently with both hands, breathing deeply when she spat on her hand and used one to fist the rest of his length in time to her head bobbing. The other fondled his sack, the witch marveling at how quickly he recovered as she played with it.

"You are going to make me come again," he warned her, and she nodded into his lap, fighting him when he tried to pull her off his cock.

"You are a stubborn woman!" he cried, starting to thrust into her mouth, and she took it, gagging a little but pulling back when he went too far.

It was an erotic dance he'd nearly forgotten. Many were unable to pleasure him in this manner even if he had gotten a few to that point, the way he needed it done. "I will teach you to take me down your throat one day," he said roughly, his hips snapping harder as she sped up.

"Don't stop. Yes, just like that, oh, what a good girl," he purred, feeling the familiar tell-tale signs of impending orgasm. "This is your last warning. I'm going to come inside your pretty little mouth, and watch you swallow so not a drop spills past your perfect, cock-sucking lips."

Loki groaned, slowing, massaging her temples as he surged into her, her lips tightening and cheeks hollowing out as she inhaled through her nose then held her breath, pushing her face down to his groin and making him buck, gripping the back of her neck in surprised reaction, spilling himself down her throat in ecstasy.

"Oh, yes, you fucking, sexy mor- uh, witch. That's right, take it, take it all. Oh, fucking hell, you were made to suck dick, woman."

He collapsed backward, head hanging off the back of the cot. "You've drained me. There's nothing left," he complained and inhaled sharply when her pointy finger jabbed into his chest. "Ow! That hurt," he whined, rubbing the area and craning his neck up to look at her narrowed eyes.

"You promised me you would be able to go multiple times. If I had known you were pulling my leg, I would have just fucked you now and sucked you later."

"Is that all?" he sighed. "Oh, ye of little faith. Even Gods need a few minutes to recover. You forget I haven't released like that in a very long time."

"How long?" she pried, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Hmmm, let me see," he pretended to contemplate, running one finger back and forth over his lips as if thinking really hard. Her head popped over the side into his line of sight, and he smirked. "At least a century."

"You're shitting me!"

"If you are insinuating it is a joke, then it is not. Release comes easy but is never so intense as this. That takes a special connection with another to reach this level bliss. I assure you. You are an exceptionally talented cocksucker."

"Loki!" she cried, then hit him in the chest again.

"Would you stop stabbing me with your pointy little digit?" he cried out, sitting up in one smooth motion. He took hold of her hands and placed them back on his wet, filthy prick. "Put your fingers to better use, woman, before you find them in holes you're not ready for."

"You’re terrible," she groaned, happily obliging him.

Loki threw his head back again, wanting so badly to make her kneel for him and perform the whole, ‘me master, you slave,’ routine, but knew this wasn't the time to introduce her to that.

"You really are a God," she observed, the tip of his cock weeping semen once more within the ‘few minutes’ time frame he’d promised.

"You have such a talent for reciting the most obvious details," he drawled down to her, purposely condescending.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult me because your cock looks too good to stop playing with it to punch you in the face."

"I can give you a black eye with that if you like," he sneered.

His mouth opened in a rictus of pleasure as she suddenly enveloped his cock again in her mouth, sucking hard, pulling back up and pushing herself further down. "I'm never going to make it to your pussy if you keep insisting on fellating my cock," he rasped out.

"Then fuck me!" she urged, letting his dick snap back up to his belly. He did just that, shoving her a bit roughly to the other side of the cot, settling between her spread thighs and pushing past her ring of muscle, then pulling in a breath of extreme pleasure at the feel of her restrictive tunnel.

"Your cunt was made for me, Darling."

"Use me. I need you to. Make me come, Loki."

"Fuck, yes!"

The use of his name and her begging sent instant arousal stiffening him to such an extent it nearly made his eyes cross. He shoved the rest of his considerable length and girth into her, drawing out slowly to allow her time to adjust, then sliding back in again, his groin drawing flush with her mound.

He drew breath slowly, holding himself there, relishing the exquisite, tensile sleeve pulsing around him. "No mortal has ever taken my full length," he told her, his voice low and passionate. "I wish to know if you believe in Fate; if this joining wasn't prophesied long before you walked this mortal coil."

"I don't know about Fate, but I know if you don't move, I'm going to have to kill you."

He laughed, sliding out entirely until the head of him hung, clinging to the edge of her lower lips, threatening to fall, then sheathing himself fully. Repeating it over and over, beginning to note a hitch in her breathing, gasps, clutching at him like he was water and she a plant buried in fertile soil, roots soaking him up into her very being, needing, nurturing, giving and taking, unselfish and open to his domination.

"Exquisite. Pussy." He accentuated each word with a sharp punch of his hips, causing her to cry out, "Yes!" and "God, My God, More!"

"I am a God. Your God. You best remember that, Darling."

Bracing himself, he lowered himself to kiss her, bringing their bodies in contact. Hence, their sweat mingled and ran between them, a mist rising from their bodies in the frosty air, generating so much heat any sun itself would weep in jealousy.

He wondered, idly just how much rough play she was able to take but decided not to test her until after her first few orgasms. Then he would see what her frail body was really made of, even though she was tough for a mortal, as she’d proven many times over already.

Hermione wrapped her legs around him, pulling him into her, and he tried to grab a handful of hair before remembering it was cropped short. "Damn you!" he roared at her, never slowing. Instead, he gripped her by the back of the neck and held her there, shouting, "Look at me! I want you to see your GOD, which is the one granting you this pleasure, submit to me, release, and give yourself to me. I will fill you so full of my seed you will carry it for the rest of your days, spilling from your gaping hole to remind you of this shared ecstasy, thanking me with your dying breath as I liberate you to the heavens!"

His fiery declarations ignited an explosion of feeling that would top the measure of the Richter scale in intensity. Her body seemed to fold in on itself. His third burst of come hit her insides, and she cracked open, spilling her essence from her inflamed body, sucking him in and pushing hers out, and she distantly heard him cry out that he could love her. He could grow to love her, if she would accept him and never leave him. Each burst seemed to ignite a new round of orgasmic convulsions until her soul was sucked back into her body, and she became acutely aware of his solid form resting entirely on top of her.

Hermione felt like he'd filled her up and wrung her out to dry. Several times. Never had she come so hard, so many times, or for so long in succession with one man. Correct that, one God. Or any God. Is this what sex with a God would always be like? She was ruined for mortal men and vowed she would do her best to help save him, even if he tired of her. This treasure he shared with her was more valuable than any she'd ever chased because it was genuine, open, a pleading connection she accepted with an open heart, and whispered back to him what he had shouted to her.

Breathing into his ear, she repeated, "I could grow to love you. I accept you. I will never leave you, unless you wish it. Even then, I’ll carry you in my heart and soul. Promise me you will be mine, and I bind myself to you with a solemn oath. Never let you go. Until my dying breath."

"I will make you immortal. If we escape this dreary prison, I will take you to Utgard, procure a Golden Apple from Idunn’s garden and feed it to you. I will worship you as my goddess for centuries. I swear this." His head was down, voice muffled, speaking into her chest, but she heard every word and the strength of conviction with which it was said.

Another shock of lust bolted through them simultaneously. He cried out, pressing into her as another orgasm was ripped from his balls, so suddenly, it hurt from the intensity. As soon as his surprise ejaculation was wrung from him, it triggered another in her. He held her shaking, quivering, moaning form until she fell still. When their ragged breathing quieted, Loki asked her softly, "What the fuck just happened?"

Hermione grinned into his shoulder with a sigh. "We just bound ourselves to one another. Apparently, there was enough magic in both of us to trigger a binding oath. You're stuck with me now, for better or for worse."

He tiredly pulled back from her, pushing sweaty hair back over her scalp. "It had better be worth it. I'm difficult to please."

"I haven't heard any complaints so far," she teased back, and he gripped her bum cheeks in both hands and squeezed.

"You won't hear any at all if you keep up this performance. This is the first time in centuries I've been – what is that phrase my oaf of a brother used to use when he bed his mortal – ah yes, ridden hard and put away wet. You've exhausted me."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It 'tis. Now budge over."

They allowed their skin to cool naturally, neither bothering to wash the mingled emissions of their recently shared passion.

A fundamental shift had happened just now in their relationship. While sleep won out over contemplation, there was plenty to be had in the days to come.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione struggles to survive and slowly loses the battle with the mountain.

Chapter 7

Work on the stairway was excruciatingly slow. Hermione had decided to work in a spiral pattern, just in case she broke through to an adjoining chamber or cavern. That way, she wouldn't alert those below, if there was a level below or parallel to them somewhat, with falling rock. If she broke through a floor, it would be easier to repair and conceal before anyone noticed, if they didn’t right away. 

The prisoners would be able to plan an escape going up that route if it looked feasible.

The escape tunnel/stairway wound around and up about twenty feet now. By the look of things, they had a very long way to go. Although neither had a sure way of telling, Loki was familiar with some of the sizes the mountain ranges ran on the largest continent. He assured her that more likely than not, they were deep in the heart of a very large one, if the stories he’d heard were right.

Hermione was also incredibly nervous that her Cornucopia account was going to run out. She kept her and Loki on a strict eating regimen, so they didn't get complacent with their rations. He seemed less concerned about the eventuality of running out than she.

It was an excellent circumstance that they had the food source available to them at all. Even Loki, as a God, may have starved into a scarecrow by the time he was fed again. The Jotuns were deliberately torturing him, attempting to make him waste away and suffer to the most excruciating extent possible before ending his life. 

Every time her charm warned them of incoming guards, she pressed a hot, heart-melting kiss to Loki’s lips, locked tightly together for a few precious moments as if each were their last goodbye. Each time he was left in one piece, he made desperate and passionate love to her, never more glad to still be alive, and to stay that way if it meant an eternity with this maddening, fiery creature.

There was quiet desperation as the time dragged by. They knew not whether it was day or night, and in a sense, it became timeless, losing track and having no idea how much had passed. The Tempus spell didn't work for her, so Hermione was frustrated at first, but Loki urged her to let go of her false sense of needing to mark time, and she began living more in the moment. It was a beautiful and necessary lesson if she were to survive in captivity with him and make it out alive.

One day the Jotuns stormed in, and her alarm didn't trigger. Loki had been lounging on the cot, and she was up digging away. They had made it habit to keep the hidey-hole concealed, and carefully cover up any evidence of excavation, if the guards were to check the toilet. 

The Jotuns had checked and searched the toilet facility so often they were no longer bothered. 

The pair always kept her things carefully concealed in the hidey-hole or kept them on their person. As her hair grew, quite rapidly, it seemed, she knotted her wand into her hair so it would never be far. Loki thought she looked rather exotic with it twisted up like that, especially as it grew further down her back in curly ropes, and she had more and more to work with.

The Jotuns gave Loki no time to prepare or warn her. They lowered the barrier, stunned him, cuffed him, and dragged him from the chamber, not bothering to re-erect the forcefield. However, it didn't matter because Hermione wouldn't be able to figure out the stone entrance, and a simple Alohamora wouldn't make it budge an inch, as she found out a short time later.

It was a good chunk of before she descended, immediately realizing he’d been taken. Hermione nervously waited for them to bring Loki back to her. And waited. And waited. And waited. After she'd had a few meals and slept twice, continuing to work on her digging but exhausting more quickly without his magic to recharge her often, she made half the progress. It was frustrating, grueling, and the silence grated on her nerves like fingernails down a chalkboard. She didn't dare spend much time outside of the toilet room because she still hadn't figured out why her alarm had failed. She erected another one, and that failed too, as she was examining the walls by the door when she heard that characteristic grinding, and sprinted like a terrified rabbit, diving into the toileting area while simultaneously hitting her head on the rough-hewn bowl.

Trying hard not to groan, she held the goose-egg forming on her forehead and pressed to the side of the toilet, peeking out just the smallest bit possible.

Two large Jotun males went up the dais. They destroyed all of the meager furnishings, smashing the books and laughing, then blasting it with some type of cold-based weapon until there was nothing but dust and ice shards everywhere. When they left, Hermione felt her heart sink and knew that something terrible was or had already happened to Loki. That same tender organ broke just a little because she was an eternal optimist. Yet, the longer he was gone, the larger the crack in her heart grew until she was sure he was dead. She was going to die as well, not knowing how to get off a planet of Frost Giants in an inhospitable land. All of her attempts to chip away at the door were met with an inexplicable, frustrating resistance, as well as the surrounding wall. She did not understand why in the world she could funnel upward, but not outward, at this level. The Jotunns may have also possessed magicks, or had magic-proofed, the interior in ways even Loki was unaware of. She decided to focus on getting up and out as fast as possible.

Hermione didn't know if her magic would work typically once on the surface. Still, it seemed to be getting more reliable the closer she got to what she assumed was the top. Working faster, she poured all of her energy into the task. She emerged victorious an unknown number of weeks later, or perhaps it was only days. Breaking through much sooner than anticipated and with cautious elation, she stuck her head through the hole in the surface.

Heart plummeting, she was filled with an icy dread that gripped her insides as cold and deadly as the sub-zero winds ripping across the flat expanse of rock. Nothing could be seen as far as the eye could see, which didn’t seem to be far at all, but Hermione knew looks could be deceiving, especially in a mountainous area and on surfaces so high above. Chancing a warming charm, her wand sputtered to life. Not as good as back on Earth, but much more amenable to the surface of the planet for whatever reason, or the altitude. It shielded her just enough to tolerate the biting wind and driving crystals that nearly blinded her with their intensity.

Hermione trudged a few hundred yards and then gasped, teetering forward until she flung herself backward and landed hard on the treacherous ground. She'd almost stepped into an abyss. 

“Fuck!” she cursed, frustrated at her carelessness in her excitement. Re-casting her charm, the witch shivered, knowing she'd have to go back down soon. The witch’s innate curiosity and will to live made her move ahead, or around, instead, as she followed the cliff's sheer edge. To her dismay, it was a vast plateau, and absolutely nothing led up to or away from the lonely summit.

Almost frozen, teeth chattering, Hermione had a hard time locating her tunnel as she backtracked. It had been blown over with snow and ice by the time she made her way back to it. Digging through, she slid down face first, then turned and sealed the top. She allowed herself to sit in the dark, so cold and soaked now to the bone, she couldn't seem to get warm. Losing hope, exhausted, and seeing no escape, she cried. She sobbed for herself, and what she had been lucky enough to find and share with Loki for a short time, only to have it so cruelly ripped from her just when the God had snatched her heart for keeps.

She screamed at the top of her lungs for Loki, for the absolute waste of an incredible God's wit and talent, his incomprehensibly long life snuffed out after a thousand-odd years, a light that would never grace her world again.

Hermione graduated to whimpering pitifully, rocking back and forth like a lost, errant child until she was utterly fatigued, beyond exhaustion. Reaching once more into her Cornucopia, she ran into the back of the shell. Oh, fuck. Well, now she was dead for sure. Her supply of monies must have run out, and she had no way of procuring more food.

Indeed, she was correct in assuming she had no way of procuring more food, but not for the reasons she believed; she had plenty of money, Harry had invested it many times over. Hermione was a rich woman if she ever bothered to come back and take over her holdings from her best friend. It was merely unfortunate the grocer she’d had an account with burned to the ground, and Harry happened to be out of the country on holiday for an extended leave of absence. He had no way of knowing it was gone and hadn’t considered needing a backup plan. He’d later blame himself when she didn’t return.

Hermione reached into the hidey-hole she’d utilized so often, until she’d had more room to hide in the stairwell they’d created, scavenging around and finding some tinned items her and Loki had pulled from the Cornucopia but ‘saved for later.’ The stockpile was running very low by the time Loki had been taken. They really should have tried to save more, despite the fact they had rationed to almost the very maximum both of their vigorous metabolisms could tolerate and still regenerate magical energy. Feeling more resigned than ever, 

Hermione donned the makeshift winter parka she and Loki had fashioned out of various tarps and scraps of fabric that had been pulled through the Cornucopia randomly. Purposed for just such an eventuality, Loki assured her that her mortal metabolism was no match for the pure brutality of Jotunheim’s unforgiving arctic climate when out in the open for an extended period.

Even wearing that and spending more precious magical energy casting warming charms didn't drive away the chill completely. Hermione was forced to stay close to the surface to even attempt the warming charms, where the harsh climate just beyond bestowed relentless frigidness, worse than that at the bottom of her stairway in the now-dark prison. Her efforts turned out just to be a waste of energy. The desperate witch couldn’t help feeling like the Little Match Girl that tried and tried to get warm until she finally froze to death.

The cold still seemed to penetrate her very bones, even under the parka and conserving her energy. She couldn't get it out, shivering and shivering, teeth chattering so hard they clacked together, giving her a terrible headache. There was nothing to burn for warmth, and she felt her magical reserves running low, so she curled up on the topmost steps and fell asleep despite her body’s attempts to warm her insides.

\--

Only her peak physical condition allowed Hermione to survive.

In the days that followed, the stubborn witch cursed herself for passing on bringing a broom on her adventures in case of an emergency. 

Her ropes and climbing gear were still back in that fucking cave with the goddamn Yetis, at least, she figured they were, if the Yetis hadn't dismantled and destroyed it all. It didn’t really matter at this point anyway, it wasn’t like she was ever going to see any of her old equipment ever again.

The one cable of rope she had left wasn't enough to convince her that lowering herself off the edge of the abyss was worth the risk unless she was faced with no other choice.

She compulsively checked on the prison cavern, but it remained dark, utterly silent, and she had to use more precious magic to light her way continually when down below. Eventually, she gave up on anyone coming back to that room, so she focused on the top of the plateau and shoved a bunch of snow and ice down the steps over a period of days and froze it solid, so it would at least slow down an intruder if her stairwell was detected.

She briefly considered going back down to the cavern and trying one more time to dig straight down or through the walls but vetoed the idea. She had no idea what type of complex she was in, truly, given the alien nature of her environment. Hermione knew she could be in a large, crowded facility with excellent sound proofing, as easily as the structure could be a maximum security, top-secret, isolated cell. She could be wearing herself out unnecessarily, even if any protective magicks had faded. If was successful in attempting to dig down, she could be digging herself through to this planet's proverbial china and never reach it.

Instead, she watched the sky. In rare moments when the wind was absent and the air still, motes of ice crystals hung in the air, magical and fleeting. It would have been a wondrous, beautiful sight if it also didn't mock the omen of her death in its deadly sparkling prison.

Even with rationing to the extreme, eventually, the food ran out, and she'd chewed through a fair bit of leather, hoping it would sustain her. 

She obsessively reached into the Cornucopia over and over, almost mad with hunger; then, enraged, one day she threw it off the cliff into the abyss, not surprised there was no sound of it hitting the ground. It confirmed her theory; it was definitely too far down for her meager rope, not that there was anywhere to really tie it off safely.

Her one solace was having water. There was plenty of water. Fuck, she was surrounded by it. When her magic ran low, she melted snow in a dirty plastic container against her body, warming it to a less-icy, palatable temperature and sipping it gingerly. She didn't get a screaming ice headache that way.

It was then that she noticed that she felt a bit stronger after drinking the melted snow and ice. Hermione melted more, drank it, and got stronger. She felt full after a cup, full like a complete meal had graced her belly only moments before.

On a hunch, she gathered up the empty tins she'd saved for just-in-case, although she initially had no idea why she’d held onto them other than a bizarre hope they would save her in some way. At this point in time, they did.

She filled them all with snow, melted them to the best of her ability, then repeated the action, stockpiling it inside of a coffin-sized, makeshift igloo she’d fashioned out of her surroundings.

There was absolutely no way, at all, to scientifically explain how the snow on this mountaintop was filled with enough nutrition to keep her relatively sated and healthy, if a bit weak and tired much of the time.

Loki certainly hadn’t known about its properties, or he plainly would not only have told her of it but would have helped her redouble their efforts to get to the top, so they had access to such a fantastic resource.

Now that she had what seemed a strange, but acceptable, level of sustenance, she wondered what she was going to do. Stay up in this small, chiseled out space of rock for the rest of her life huddled under barely enough cover, casting warming charms constantly? Throw herself off the cliff? No birds, animals, insects, flying crafts, or even mold was evident on that flat expanse. She had explored it now more times then she could count and found nothing additional to aid her in her quest to live.

The silence got to her. The boredom threatened to drive her mad. There was literally nothing to do except entertain herself with her wand, exercise to keep the blood flowing, talk to herself, sleep, gather snow to melt, and let her sanity slip away.

She grew so used to her new, dull, pointless existence she ceased to care about her appearance. However, that was somewhat gone at this point anyway, with a lack of hygiene-related items and grooming tools. Her clothes became raggedy, holes everywhere, her hair a matted nest of tangles now that it had grown out completely. Her period had come and gone so many times that Scourgify didn't clean her underwear anymore. Hence, she just bled onto the ground and let it stain the snow an angry, muted red. 

The only thought that kept her going was Loki. She dreamed that Loki was somehow alive, out there, somewhere, and that he would come back to her.

She hallucinated. Loki was calling to her, but she couldn’t find him. It was dark. So dark. In a fit of rage she used her wand to sever her hair down to the roots, truly looking like a mad, wild woman with the remaining tufts and strands sticking up at odd angles when she was done, huffing from effort and magickal drain.

Little by little, her bright, burning light of hope grew slightly dimmer until one day, her will to survive leaving her completely. One day when the meager light shone on the plateau, she stayed curled in a little ball in her tiny shelter and just didn't wake up.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki, months late, desperately attempts to rescue his love, hoping beyond hope he isn't too late to save her.

Chapter 8

_Months later, outside the desolate, abandoned mountain of Jotunheim Prison_

Loki whipped the Frost Giant beasts of burden into a frenzy, yelling and egging them on. It had taken him months to find this place again. 

There was NO WAY she was still here, still alive. Loki simply couldn't live with himself until he'd seen to the truth of the matter. He had to hold her body in his arms and give her a proper funeral. Or erect a memorial where their shared cell remained—anything to honor her sacrifice, a meager token of her memory, and of the love that still beat fiercely within his breast.

His face returned to the familiar scowl it had sported almost the entire trip to the prison. Loki didn’t want to contemplate the state of his sanity if he found her violated, tortured, or any number of horrible imaginings. Forcing himself to concentrate, he whipped the beasts again, cursing their lumbering that slowed every time he lay off the whip.

At long last, he halted and tethered the slobbering beasts, giving them some food from a heavy pack on the sled and trotted the rest of the way to the entrance of this remote piece of Hel.

His Jotun form allowed him incredible resistance to the cold. He'd been in this form so long now, he'd nearly forgotten what it was like to need a coat or covering of any kind. He lit torches, blasting them with his magic along the wall, weak flame sputtering to life. He seared the ice from them, drying them simultaneously and igniting the last guttering flames they offered. They were like his hopes – weak – pathetic, but wouldn't die. Not yet. Not until he knew.

It felt wonderful to have his full regiment of magicks at his disposal. Drawing strength from the core of the planet once he’d figured out how, the power surged through his body, making Loki feel almost invincible. Indeed, he almost was, to those he now ruled over.

He blasted through doorways, walls, caverns, kicking the bodies of the dead, frozen Jotunn out of his way, and sneering at the positions they still lay in when he'd killed each and every one of the fuckers. That had been a very satisfying day. His sneer disappeared, and he broke into a flat out run when he reached the passageway to his old cell.

Impatiently pressing the activator on the door, it whined, groaned, and then wheeled to the side, allowing him entrance.

Loki shot a light from his hands into the dark, his shadow, a demon on the walls, dancing and taunting in the weak light. He cast about the chamber and was both relieved and terrified not to find her, nor any sign of activity.

Pushing on, he broke open the niche, not surprised it was empty, as well. The toilet facility was frozen over, and what appeared to be snow was trailing from around the corner and blowing at his feet. Wait, what? This was supposed to be closed in. Had she made it to the top? Had she survived? With a whoop, he galloped up the steps, cursing as his tall form knocked his head into the low ceiling. In the middle, he was forced to crouch, and he came to an area that looked as if it had been broken by an enormous shard of ice, which had fallen through a more substantial piece blocking the passage, and now allowed a bit of the atmosphere to leak through the rough-hewn staircase.

Loki was able to clear it without difficulty, but could hear the roaring wind above, and see the bits of snow drifting down from what was obviously a larger hole in the rock above it.

Nearing the top, finally, he could see the light of the sky, and he had to transform to his Aesir form to fit the rest of the way, crawling on his belly.

He almost missed her.

What he thought was another obstruction, was in all actuality, Hermione's body, encased in a tomb of snow. Crying out, he began digging, becoming impatient, searing the ice and snow from her body as close as he dared come to her fragile skin, now blue and lacking signs of life.

She had made it. His love had made it, somehow, after his escape. By the look of things, the wonderful, lovely, impossible mortal had hung on for a very, very long time, but he wasn't fast enough and had been too late to save her.

Loki's tears came hard and quick, and he ignored the sting of the driving snow pelting his skin. Transforming back into his Jotunn form, he reared up, pushing away the rest of the snow-caked ceiling and cursing as it fell in on him, burying them both once more.

Fighting his way free, he tugged her body into his, and dug his way out the few feet up with his other clawed hand, at last scrambling his way on top of the cursed bit of rock.

The rightful King of the Jotunns howled. His love looked the same in death as she'd looked in life, much like the first time he'd seen her. 

Ripped, torn clothing, her hair gone in patches, skin of her scalp showing while tufts of her natural color lay matted against her head from the snowpack. He briefly wondered what had driven her to hack at her scalp in such a manner.

Peaceful lips rested in repose, ready to be kissed. Her body amazingly appeared to be in good shape, preserved by the arctic cold, except for the lack of color.

What puzzled him was how healthy she looked, otherwise. Instead of an emaciated scarecrow, she looked as if she'd just lain down from a hearty meal for a rest, ready to awaken at the slightest touch.

A thought popped into his numb brain, and he gasped, not daring to believe the kernel of folklore that had been fed him as a child.

In one of the Aesir fairytales of Jotunheim, the Jotunns kidnapped and held an Aesir princess hostage inside an impenetrable mountain. After millennia, never having stopped attempting to find her, the Aesir rescuers found her alive.

The princess had been aided for centuries by a sympathetic Jotun guard. They’d fallen in love, and he steadfastedly guarded her and their secret all of that time. Unwilling to risk having his extended family put to death, the guard, with a heavy heart, refused to aid the princess in her escape.

It turns out their secrecy was all for naught. The guard’s superior learned of their affair, keeping the information to himself, in the case he could use the information to his advantage.

The very day the Aesir kin found and freed her, she begged them to spare her lover, only to find out he had already been killed by the guard’s superior, citing discovery his subordinate’s treachery, hoping to secure a position of greater power.

The superior was put to death along with most of the rest of the jailers. When the princess saw her lovers dead body, inn rage and grief, she threw herself from the top of the mountain plateau into an abyss, and her spirit rose and cursed the Jotunns who lived within the mountain henceforth, so any who entered would never leave.

It was eerie how many of the elements fit this situation exactly. The story never told how she had survived for so long. Perhaps the guard had fed her. Why would they keep her that long? How had she made her way to the top of the plateau? Mysteries that probably would never be solved were shoved to the back of his mind as he moved on from them.

Could there be truth in a straightforward child's tale? It was outlandish. Ridiculous. It was all he had left to lean on, his last hope.

Loki cast about desperately with his eyes but saw nothing with which a fragile human being could sustain herself for so long, much less an Aesir. The princess had supposedly had help from the inside. Hermione had had no such help that he was aware of. At least, there was no evidence another had co-habitated with her in the immediate vicinity. 

Loki wracked his brain, tears streaming down his face and freezing to his lashes, but he didn't care. He rocked his beloved, holding her tight to his armored bosom. “Oh, my love! I am so, so very sorry! I’ve failed you! Too late, always too late,” his voice, which had started as an anguished yell, ended in a tortured whisper. His heart broke over and over, smarting worse than any poisoned wound facing the fact that he had failed to save her.

A small voice inside his head told him to stop being stupid and look at the simple solution.

"What is the simple solution, my love!" he cried into the wind, the howling swirls tearing his words into incoherency as soon as they left his cracked lips.

_'When nothing around you makes sense, what remains, all else is burned away, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth.'_

How often had she repeated that to him in some form another, and he teased her for that particular saying? Loki had figured only mortals would utter such twattle, such blathering having no value in his mind.

What was left? Then, as if someone had pulled a blanket from over his eyes, he SAW. Truly. All around him was snow; driving, blinding, icy, boundless, never-ceasing snow. In truly abundant quantities, it surrounded the entire planet like a cloak.

Literally almost swimming, drowning in it, the snow was what remained, as there was literally nothing left, save the rock, to sustain her. 

Could it be so simple?

Carefully, he picked up an ice shard and sucked on it, rounding the edges so they wouldn't cut his beloved.

Then he placed it to the edge of her mouth and used the slightest bit of magic to cause it to drip, one drop at a time, onto her lips. It ran off, but he kept at it, able to open a corner of her mouth and force some inside. Then he massaged her stiff throat and began the process all over again, warming her gradually at the same time until her pale skin became more pliant. He was desperate. This HAD to be the answer, dammit!

For many minutes he worked, chest tight, tears continuing to stream and freeze, Loki furiously dashing them away. Whispering once more, he pleaded, “Please, please come back to me, my love. Come back to me. Do not leave me alone on this Godforsaken planet. I cannot bear to rule it without you by my side. Please live. For me. For our future. For our-” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the words, _our children,_ without knowing it’s something she wanted.

Suddenly, Hermione’s body spasmed and she coughed, spluttering hard, choking and flailing out with deadened limbs, only to have them flop back down in odd directions. She couldn't open her eyelids, gulping in air too fast for her newly revived body to handle.

Quickly, Loki turned her over and rapped sharply on her back, baring his teeth in a forced grimace at the continued flakes of ice that continued to shake loose from her body.

Within a minute, her lungs and throat had cleared enough for her to breathe deeply. When he was sure she was no longer choking, he tenderly rolled her over. He blew on her eyelids until they opened, fluttering like a butterfly's wings. Hermione’s pupils narrowed, focusing in on him, and she smiled that of an angel. He let out another whoop, triumphant, crying out into the night with victory.

His intelligent, beautiful mortal! She had annoyed and persisted in drilling into him every bit of knowledge she possessed, and in the end, it had saved her own life. He owed her everything. Everything. For if he'd not found her, he realized, belatedly, he had not intended to return to his new kingdom. It would have been too much to bear, and so he would have joined her in eternity, entombed on the summit of the lonely, empty prison.

"L- L- L-o-ki?" she stuttered out, voice chattering, broken, and he cursed himself that she was still mostly frozen, thawing the snow below them until rivers of ice water cascaded down the stairs.

Placing a soft, warm cocoon of Seidr around her drowsy form as her eyes closed again, Loki went to work to get them out of the prison. He found her wand and bag and seared them dry, returning them to her before carefully blasting bits of rock and widening the impossible staircase until it was large enough for the both of them.

It was frighteningly easy, how such power flowed through his veins. If he wasn’t careful, he could kill her with a stray swat, still learning to channel so much and control it in concert, although he had mastered much of his expanded powers.

Strapping her things to his Jotunn form, he carried her, like a babe in arms, as he made his way as quickly as he dared through the mountainous tomb.

Loki felt his Seidr grow brighter, ecstatic to be in tune with his love's own well of magic once more. He literally burned his way through parts of the miserable place just for the satisfaction of seeing it go up in flames. It took a fair bit of heat to light the frozen rock on fire, but the bodies flared nicely, cracking and blackening under his wrath.

Finally, they were out of that horrible prison, and he bolted at top speed out to his waiting sled.

Hermione whimpered, pushing weakly at his chest as she coughed again.

"My love, hush, I've found you. You're going to be alright. Please, trust me. I’m going to place you in this sled and take you somewhere you never have to be cold, ever again, if you so choose."

"L-Loki?" she rasped weakly, comprehension only now dawning faintly as her brows raised slightly. He paused to wipe away a frozen teardrop, kissed her nose, and replied, "Aye, lass. It's been a long time coming, but I've come for you. I'm bringing you to our new home."

She sighed, very weak from her revival, and dropped into a deep slumber.

Whipping the restless beasts, he set off at a grueling pace for his spacecraft, and then to the newly rebuilt capital city of Jotunheim.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having rescued his lady love, Loki and Hermione journey back to the palace in Utgard, Jotunheim. Of course, these things are never easy or without unexpected consequences.

Chapter 9

A/N: Yes, I am uploading the rest of this right away. I find my time flies away from me, with my daughter's continued health issues being chronic, unsolved, and medical professionals stubbornly taking the slow route instead of trying what we know will probably work for her. 

I've decided to simply post as much as possible when the opportunity presents itself, so I'm not leaving my readers hanging for months on end (again). That being said, be assured I am still writing and editing my other WIP's. It's been six months and more since I've posted on them, I'm aware. I still refuse to post sub-standard work, however, so you'll have to wait a little longer for updates to those. I am much closer to updating them than I have been in a long time. Fingers crossed.

_The Palace of Utgard, Jotunheim_

The gates admitting entry to the palace proper were raised, Loki whipping his refreshed beasts through them at full tilt. Having tagged the sleigh with the royal streamers of his chosen colors, they could be seen for an entire half-mile even in total darkness, such was the sharp eyesight of a race more suited to hunting than farming. No Jotun that valued their life would dare stop the sleigh with those banners flying upon it.

Loki’s ship was carefully hidden away in a specially prepared area twenty-odd miles from the palace's heart. Official Utgard patrols roamed out into the wilderness a significant way from the city. They boasted heavy armaments in substantial numbers to dissuade any of the rebels from invading. After months of infighting, the skirmishes had grown weak and infrequent.

Loki wasn’t so naïve’ as to believe the rebels had given up entirely on overthrowing his new appointment as King but was reasonably sure that the last of them would be rooted out and fiercely put to death publicly to end their traitorous efforts, for good.

Stopping at the soaring stables housing the great beasts and more exotic, native Jotun creatures, Loki harshly barked out an order and waved away the young men that came running to take the reins of the blowing, weary animals. Wary, his subjects obeyed, bowing as they backed out, ruby eyes deferentially thrown to the ground in awe at their newly crowned King’s power and authority.

When he was confident they were alone, Loki cast a slight illusion of him leaving the stables by himself, a sack slung over one shoulder with a noticeable bulk to it, but nothing that would raise suspicion.

Hermione was dead weight, but he felt her bosom rise and fall against his broad shoulder. He was anxious to get her back to his private and heavily warded chambers. Internally he debated whether to summon his personal Healer, deciding against it for the immediate future until he took stock of her condition more fully.

Something nagged at him, and Loki felt an itch between his shoulder blades that usually spelled trouble. On alert, he made it to his chambers with no issue, save for the approach of several guards who saluted him and a very relieved personal advisor whom he also waved away, claiming exhaustion and needing rest, telling the Jotunn elder he’d speak with him in the late morning, for it was almost the dawn of a new day in Utgard.

The cover of the dark had certainly helped conceal his entry to the palace. The main areas were much busier in the daytime with the usual goings-on of royal affairs. It was almost amusing how similar things were here in relation to Asgard. Royalty operated much the same no matter where you went, he supposed, with degrees of kindness or iron hand, depending on the ruler.

Finally ensconced within his chamber, door kicked shut and locks and wards automatically sealing him in, and away from prying eyes and ears, he let the illusion drop.

Carefully placing his love on his silky bed, he drew the rough veil of coarse fibers from her face, placed there in case someone tried to touch or peek under his bundle.

A sharp inhalation echoed within the icy walls, and he reared back, hands jerking up in surprise, his green-tinged Seidr automatically wielding a ball of power in self-defense before he blew out the shock and dropped his arms to his sides in exasperation.

Talk about over-reaction.

Still, his curiosity was definitely piqued. Was this a manifestation of her experience on the mountain?

True to form, as if born of the planet, Hermione lay, sleeping, as blue as he, markings denoting her of royal lineage similar to his own. He tilted his head in wonderment. She was ravishing before, and breathtaking now before him.

Her lithe body had filled into the larger curves of a Jotunn female, still small by the race's measures in physical proportions, but much curvier than her lean, hardened form had been prior. Breasts plumped under her worn garments as his mouth watered a bit.

Most stunning of all was her hair. Loki never imagined a being could possess such a head of hair. Long, curling waves of soft, chocolate brown locks cascaded over her shoulders practically down to her waist. Partially covering her face, he brushed the thick tresses aside, marveling at the beauty as it framed her petite, resting face like the perfect, gilt frame for a masterpiece portrait.

A flare of jealousy bit his breast as he imagined the greedy lust other Jotunn males would feel for his bride-to-be, chastising himself briefly again at getting ahead of himself with his longings to have her legally as his Queen, as well as the way they’d bonded spiritually, soul to soul.

Focusing, Loki slowly brought a slender finger down to her face, tracing a ridge running over her cheek, down her chin, and disappearing in her rags to the cleavage of her breasts. Her stomach was bared, and the long scar he’d ask her about was very faint, a war trophy. His insides clenched again at the thought she’d nearly died many times, and he may have never met her.

Pulling away, he brought that same finger to his lips and tapped lightly upon them, a million and one ideas springing to mind and as quickly discarding them. This development hinted at so many possibilities. Avenues had opened up that he never imagined would have existed if she’d remained in human form. The path forward might be easier than Loki anticipated, in eventually presenting her to his court.

Of course, she would want a say, and he’d give her anything he could provide, within reason, of course. A King had duties, after all.

Loki did _not_ intend to let her slip through his fingers again.

Washing over her form with a gentle wave of his hand, he set her in a clean, comfortable, warm gown and cleansed her. He would see her naked when, and if, he thought with a twinge, she offered her consent, grimacing at the thought she may not want him anymore.

Laying down next to her and forgoing a meal, Loki was at last temporarily satisfied; his love was real, alive, and at his side. He rolled her to her side and became the large spoon, gently resting his chin on top of her head. His love’s glorious mane would be a novelty in Utgard, should they go public together. Never in his memory had he seen a Jotunn, or human for that matter, with such splendor adding to her already, in his mind, stunning beauty.

\--

Late the following morning, Loki was slow to wake. Unusual for the Jotun King, his mind felt foggy at best, heavily cobwebbed in a haze of slumber and wakefulness, fighting the in-between.

Voices. Angry, raised shouts that normally would have had him on his feet and in a defensive position with knives in hand, at the very least, only barely penetrated the dreams that still pervaded behind his eyelids.

Dreams of his curly-haired Jotun wife, heavy with child, worshipped by all who walked in her footsteps persisted in taunting the more primal instincts within his possessive male form.

The feminine voice of his non-dream-lover cut through finally, and his eyelids fluttered open. Flat on his back, he was covered in the silks and furs that graced his bed, the place by his side abandoned. Panicking stupidly, he felt around, palm flat over the coverlet as if that would bring Hermione back to his bed.

He jolted upright, the covers falling to his naked waist.

What greeted his eyes was baffling, amusing, terrifying, and validating.

Her hand outstretched, his revived love was dressed in splendorous Jotun silks, different from what he’d placed on her just a few short hours prior. The spider caves yielded a great abundance of the highly-coveted and difficult-to-process threads, one of the prime sources of Utgard’s new-found wealth.

How in the world -?

Deciding to save his puzzlement for later, he sprang from his seated position, almost making it to his love who had his Advisor and personal physician up against an opposite wall, clutching their own necks and arguing with her in their native tongue. Another mystery. He knew for a fact _his_ Hermione didn’t speak the Jotunn language.

Before he could reach out to grab her, ask her what in the Nine she thought she was doing, Loki, himself, was held fast by an invisible barrier.

Irritated she’d somehow erected a shield against his intrusion, his eyes narrowed, hands coming down flat against the concrete yet not-there barrier.

“Hermione,” he spat, forcing himself to remain calm. “Let them go. These two are my closest allies in the Kingdom. To make an enemy of them now is suicide.”

She twirled a finger and muted the garbled words coming from their mouths without looking at him, then turned to him, arm still outstretched in their general direction.

Inhaling sharply, Loki was overcome by the transformation.

No long human by any stretch of the imagination, she had changed even more than she appeared the late night before when he’d put them to bed.

A gleaming silver-tinted circlet graced her head, perched almost haphazardly atop her wildly tousled curls yet seeming right at home there. It fit perfectly, the arch crowning her skull's curve as small combs climbed underneath, securing it to her hair.

It was the long-lost royal diadem, reserved for the recognized high Queen of Jotunheim. The diadem had been lost to antiquity, yet there it sat upon her head. Also, there had not been a recognized ruling female of Jotunheim since….well, long before Laufey.

The King actually felt his throat go dry. The stories didn’t quite match the exact description of the circlet but were pretty damn close. It further cemented his formerly-thought wild theory of the bedtime story Jotunn children were told to put them to sleep, adventures dancing through their dreams.

“Where did you get that?”

She cocked her head, curiously. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Don’t play coy with me,” he spat ominously, arms folded. He didn’t bother attempting to take down her barrier yet. Clearly, she had changed. For the better? Was she even the same person he’d fallen in love with and rescued? Bonded with for life? He’d yet to ascertain.

Dropping her other arm, the two Jotunn men fell unceremoniously to the ground, clutching their throats. Both rose unsteadily to shaking feet. It was disconcerting. Not so much to see his Advisor, as the Jotunn was very old, even though he didn’t look it; no, his personal Healer was stout, a large creature. Reduced to a shaking mess, this travesty she’d made of his Healer was simply something Loki never thought he’d see.

“Stay,” he commanded them. He saw them moving their mouths out of his peripheral vision, still silent, but both fell to their knees, heads bowed in deference until Loki addressed them further. If their postures could shout their will to run away any louder, he’d be deaf.

“Remove this – whatever this is,” he told her coldly. He did not like the disrespect rolling off of her. Was this what he had walked into unknowingly? A revived fable resurrected, only to usurp his throne? Over his dead, blue body. Or hers, apparently.

“As you wish.”

Suddenly he could move, and he did so, more carefully now. Her stance was guarded but relaxed. She wasn’t afraid of him. He cast about, but her wand was nowhere in sight.

“I no longer need it. I have been – transformed.”

“I can see that.”

“Aren’t you curious as to how?”

“Are you really going to attempt inane small talk with me at this juncture?”

“As you wish.”

His petulant tone clearly didn’t sit right with her. Gasping, he heard his trusted men’s voices return to them, and she turned her back on him, sweeping from the bedroom.

Oh, they would have words. First, he needed to know what he was dealing with. Secondly, he needed to deal with it. Her. The trick was figuring out exactly how.

\--

More angry voices greeted him upon entry into the throne room.

The King was non-plussed to see what he had dubbed the _new_ Hermione on _his_ rightful throne, looking for all the Nine as if she were born to sit there.

An old, jealous rage crept into his heart. Was this the thanks he got for rescuing her? For sparing her life? For caring for her? He could have left her to die on that wretched mountain. _Months_ he had searched, at the peril of his own formidable lifeforce, his long absences questioned by the restless Jotunn new to his rule.

The tenuous threads holding the Crown together at the very start of his rule would not have survived the truth at that point in time.

Oh yes, they had crowned him, eager for old blood to fight the separatists who didn’t think the old ways should be followed anymore. Loki had sneered at the so-called rebels wholeheartedly. Jotunheim was, at its very heart, _traditional_ because it needed to be. Deeply so. The rigid social structure allowed them survival. Without it, the hierarchy, their race, would not have thrived and survived Odin’s massacre.

Loki did not need the Casket of Ancient Winters returned to him to rise Jotunheim above the slummy, icy rock it had been seen as for millennium. Now, this upstart witch thought to turn tricks to usurp his power?

Her frozen journey had clearly addled her wits.

Loki knew he had told her enough of the Jotunn history for her to piece together a fabrication and illusion. He stubbornly told himself she’d turned into an enemy. A powerful one. His love warred with his power-hungry ego.

Was their love worth the sacrifice? Would he really give up everything for her?

He raged, seething, yet kept a calm and relaxed outer façade as he slid into a female form, mingling commonly amongst his subjects. The subterfuge would allow him the court’s view of her actions without his own presence coloring his subjects’ reactions. Few, if anyone, paid any attention to Jotunn females. While they were highly respected as mates, mothers, and kin, they seldom held positions of power and respect, which is why so many worked in the palace as maids, cooks, and cleaners.

It also sustained their families, giving them the means to live where before there had been next to none. What trade could one take up and practice when Asgard had all but shut down interplanetary relations to Jotunheim and destroyed much of their industry?

Loki’s interdimensional tricks had solved that little problem quite nicely. It was not his concern that Asgard could not figure out how the Jotunn were coming and going. Loki was technically following the peace treaty's terms in not using the Bifrost for trade or communications. Sweeping away all extraneous thought, he simply observed.

His subjects questioned one another. Their voices rose so Hermione could hear their mutterings.

“Where is our King?”

“Has he forsaken us?”

“I will see the throne burn before another traitor sits upon it.”

Oh ho. Well, so there were still some snakes inside his nest of patriotic warriors.

Loki took a mental note of those who spoke in traitorous anger and the very few who nodded in agreement with the traitor. Their heads would look splendid, decorating the ice pikes at the city's gates, when he was through with them.

Another, louder voiced supposition caught his attention. “Has she slain our new King?”

Angry murmurs got louder. How in the world they had not already charged the throne to overtake the usurper was beyond his understanding, which he was found to have many gaps upon his acceptance as their rightful leader.

His Jotun/Midgardian beauty seemed unaware, herself, of the severity of her own actions. Indeed, she was foolishly staring off into the distance, utterly self-absorbed in her own thoughts. A few intrepid Jotunn crept up the stairs, their hands reaching black-tipped, sharpened nails towards her arms' bare flesh.

Before the first one could reach her, an echo of a whisper-shout stopped all activity in its tracks, including those creeping up on the transformed Hermione.

“Stop!”

The voice repeated. Raspy, like that of brittle paper, pages turned by the softest, most tender gloved hand, thousands of years old, a real miracle the sound still carried from the wizened throat it erupted from.

Like the Seas of Desolation, the growing crowd parted, and a figure tottered down the middle. Coming to no more than Loki’s waist, the creature under the ostentatious cloak was hunched over, bent almost to the point of a hunchback. The figure used a cane made from a thick, rare wood that had been extinct on Jotunheim for over two thousand years, the issuing sound of its thumping more ominous than the command issued by its owner.

“The Ancient One!” announced the blaring herald, and annoyed, Loki wished only to blast the Page from his lofty perch at the throne room entrance.

No. Fucking. Shit.

The real miracle was the old bastard was still alive. His mere presence had become legend. Many said he had died centuries ago, the rumors of his long life and continued existence kept current in order to keep those in line that would dare contest the lineage of Laufey, his father’s father, and all that came before him.

It was said ruin would permanently come to Utgard if the line were to die out and never restored.

The line that was said to have started with a prison guard and an Aesir princess …. No… could it possibly be? The stories never told of her being with child, yet the glaring gaps in the history were so obvious, it struck Loki as odd he’d never heard them questioned. Perhaps... 

Perhaps they weren’t missing at all but merely kept protected from public view? It would have been an extremely long time to keep such information not only covered up but intact as well.

The King continued observing the restlessness around him, itching to confront this wizened being. Just a little bit longer, and he would know which cards to lay on the proverbial table.

Loki did not view his espionage and lack of known presence as an act of cowardice upon his conscience. Oh no. He was preserving that same lineage, extrapolating from his last line of thought, by covertly assessing the quickly changing environment's strategic points. Could this work to his advantage?

As if on cue, Hermione stood, and her hair tumbled impossibly further down her back, to her waist, in long, luxurious, unheard of curls, springing and bouncing like they had a life of their own. He almost liked her better with short hair. Almost. Long hair was great to wrap his fists around as he rode her into the mattress, too. It was a good thing he was in female form, or he’d be rock solid at the very image burning into his brain.

A delicate, bejeweled hand reached out, lifting the paper-thin hand finally before her and helping the Ancient One to the throne itself. He waved her off, conjuring his own little stool out of thin air and perching upon it. Pushing back his hood, all went to their knees in unison.

With the except of the gnarled, almost unrecognizably wizened face, there was no doubt this was the revered, legendary seer of old.

Clear, impossibly jade eyes laid upon Loki’s female form, and he startled once more, unhinged to be caught off his guard a second time in one morning. A stick-like finger beckoned him forward. A few heads turned, eyes narrowing at the woman’s defiance of the Ancient One.

Shit. Loki had forgotten to kneel with the others.

His subjects wondered, would the Ancient One smite her where she stood?

If any thought to enjoy a display of power, they were sorely disappointed when instead a sensation not unlike ice water coolly slipped over Loki’s skin, and he was revealed in his native form once more when he stalked forward and stood before the Ancient One.

“King Loki. It is good to see you finally take the throne,” he rasped, chuckling, a cough sounding as the rail-thin chest wracked with spasms. Holding up a hand, the One waved Loki away. “Sit. We have much to discuss.”

Warily, he cast about, discombobulated as Hermione pointedly made eye contact with him and took _his_ spot on the throne of Utgard.

“Where pray tell, am I supposed to rest my backside, when it is so clearly occupied?” he snarled, his ire rising despite a latent reverence threatening to break through his conditioning in deference to the One’s presence.

“Oh. Well, that is easily amended.”

The One acted as if it were no matter that he conjured into existence a matching throne, larger, more masculine, seated slightly above and forward to the ‘old’ one that had taken on a more feminine quality the instant the new one appeared.

“Is that more to your liking?”

“For now,” the King groused, reluctantly taking his new place. Yes. For now, he would allow Hermione this disgrace heaped upon Loki’s person. Much later, in private, he decided she would pay. When, and how much, and in what manner, was to be determined by this new, novel situation and guest.

“All of you may rest.”

As one, the Jotunn rose and then settled into a Lotus pose, hands resting on their knees.

Eerily, they performed like living blue ice robots. Loki knew he had vastly underestimated the One’s influence and power over his people.

“Pay them no mind. They are rightfully alarmed by my sudden appearance. You really must excuse the absence. It’s been, oh, eight hundred-odd years since I’ve been above ground. Much has changed, as it is wont to do. How is the All-Father?”

Asking if the sky was blue or gray or green with purple polka dots would have taken Loki less by surprise. Stunned into simplicity, he answered as such. “Last I knew, Odin was kicking about Asgard as hale and hearty as his steed.”

“I remember Sleipner. A fine specimen, the day he came into being. Once my own beast, he’s reincarnated many times. A gift this time around, as thanks to Odin for raising my kin, was the least I could do.”

That barely had time to sink in before the One’s wispy attention turned to Hermione. “My joy is unbound to see _you_ finally returned,” he addressed, and what would have passed for a macabre smile, even for a skeletal figure, graced the deep grooves in the blue and black face. The jade eyes seemed out of place. With a start, Loki realized they were the same shade as his own.

“Father,” she finally spoke, addressing the One most familiarly. “How I’ve longed to reunite with you. It took our fair Midgardian witch many years to find the Mirror. Did you know the Yeti had taken it? It is still within their realm.”

“Oh, yes. For safekeeping. Who do you think placed it there? I could not have just anyone returning to Utgard, proclaiming to be the lost princess, now could I?” the One chuckled.

“Would someone care to fill me in? I seem to have missed a great deal,” Loki groused bad-naturedly.

Loki could not care less if he sounded pedestrian. Whatever was transpiring between the two beside him was clearly way above and beyond his considerable comprehension.

Hermione and the One shared a private smile, fingers touching, ignoring Loki.

“Father,” she whispered.

“You shall make a fine Queen for my son, my beautiful girl,” the One answered fondly.

“Queen? Marriage? What outrage is this? Am I not the King of Jotunheim? I am the one who makes these decisions! Not you, not her, not anyone!” he roared, standing in outrage, veins pulsing as his blood pressure skyrocketed.

Growing more disturbed by the second, his patience worn razor-thin, Loki stalked away from his newly made throne, confronting the pair, summoning the ceremonial staff reserved for high functions. At his gesture, a couple of servants hurried out and placed the heavy robes, staff, and official Crown on his person.

There. Let them contend with this. He would not allow them to simply oust him from what was rightfully _his_.

“You misunderstand, my boy,” the One continued, unconcerned when Loki lowered the staff's tip towards Hermione’s chest. “’ Tis but a formality. You are already bonded and have been since the beginning of this Cycle.”

“I think not. Either this is a very clever, elaborate charade, or you are about to overthrow me. I will not have it.”

A bell’s peal held no beauty next to the chiming of Hermione’s golden laughter, floating down the hallways in motes of serenity that drifted into the outer atmosphere and eased the tensions of the others that had sensed a disturbance at the palace.

“How – how did you –”

Loki fought the urge to drop to his knees.

“I am KING!” he shouted, stomping his foot. Shit. Now he was throwing a tantrum. That was it. He would have to just behead all of them and start over with a brand new court. He could not have them remembering his disgrace.

“Yes, yes, yes. We all know.”

“Perhaps it would be easier if… we showed him?” Hermione questioned the One.

A thick, bushy brow that almost obscured the man’s forehead raised higher than his hairline. If the situation weren’t so serious, it would have been absurd to the point Loki was hysterical. He almost was.

“Yes, yes. It would be quickest. The boy does seem determined to have his way.”

“It is his way.” She smiled, and that was it. He was done being patronized third-hand.

As he summoned power into the staff to blast into the woman's chest that had taken over his lover’s body and mind, King Loki’s entire world vanished before his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ancient One takes them on a journey of historical discovery, observing, living and breathing the past so they might understand and accept their origins. Loki's stubbornness may very well be his undoing.

Chapter 10

Loki had never been an active participant in a living book- story – memory? Before. Especially one that was not his own consciousness. 

Relived the feelings of others? Conjured vast illusions? Hallucinated? All of the above. This was new to him.

He was a passenger in a body that did not belong to the current ‘him,’ obviously. Dressed in what must have passed for a guard’s uniform millennia ago, he marched in formation up and down dank, dark hallways. With another start, he realized they were under the mountain he’d been kept prisoner within. Except this time, everything looked – much newer. The rocks hadn’t been newly carved but had much sharper edges than the current day. The floor was a polished ice-white and slick to boot. His boots' soles had grips on them that kept him from falling flat on his ass but curiously did not mar the floor one bit.

It must have been some lost form of Jotunn decorative aesthetic. He’d never seen anything like it. Turning attention from the rather odd décor and its lack of it, the being he inhabited stopped before a cell.

The Captain of their unit uttered orders in the very Old Tongue. Even the Ancient One would have had difficulty remembering the nuances of it all, yet Loki heard it loud and clear with perfect understanding.

After addressing the group, giving them individual orders, Loki was left alone with the Captain. When sure they were alone, the huge Jotunn took him by both shoulders. “You are my most trusted guard. Interrogate her. Leave no stone unturned. We must discover the All-Father’s deceptive plans at any cost. If you must kill her to obtain this information, you are authorized to do so, but be forewarned. If you fail, your life is forfeit.”

“I understand. I will not fail you,” Loki’s mouth uttered.

With a firm nod, Loki’s body went through a series of chambers designed to keep the prisoner within tightly confined. None of these security measures existed in his own time, but the magicks had been much more robust, so were probably unneeded. No such magicks reflected from the eerily similar cell he entered that he’d so recently escaped from.

The scene shifted before him right as he entered the cell. His initial impression was of a distraught, limp figure sobbing on a tatty, thin bed, not dressed at all for the Jotunheim cold.

The disorienting sensation drifted and coalesced into a situation much removed from the previous. The impassive, dedicated, and loyal guard from mere moments ago was filled with a depth of emotion Loki was unaware normal Jotunns could sustain, even though he was born one.

Love, lust, admiration, terror, and even determination flooded the brain he watched from within. The guard bent over the prisoner, lifted her skirts, and started thrusting into her, grunting obscenities in the Very Olde Tongue in her ear. At first, Loki was disgusted, believing the guard was raping the woman. It soon became apparent that wasn’t the case.

When he finished inside of her, the woman had tightened and gushed around him, turning so his organ fell out, and his fluids leaked from her moist center, embracing him as he did her in a crushing, desperate hold.

“I will get you out of here. Word has been sent to your people. All of the plans have fallen neatly into place. The Norns have smiled upon us, my love. Soon, very soon, we shall be together, free from this Hel.”

They spoke at length. Time sped up, flew by, and became meaningless.

Although the details were unclear, the princess did bear the guard a son, whisked away in the dark of night. They’d very cleverly concealed the pregnancy lest the child be taken from her and killed.

It was unknown where the infant ended up.

The tragic lovers loved hard and then fulfilled the part of the story he knew, and died. Over and over, missing one another through reincarnation after reincarnation, always searching, they were never happy, could never figure out why they felt incomplete.

Desiring to re-experience one of the earliest romantic moments between the fabled couple, Loki quite accidentally found himself rewound to that very moment in time. It was addictive. It reminded him of the first time he realized he loved Hermione, with all of his heart.

When the scenes of interspersed lives receded, flowing golden ropes could be seen tethering all of them together. In the distance, they faded until one final space was held open, empty bubbles waiting to be filled with…. something.

Following the chain, his sense of heaviness and _home_ grew stronger every moment. Realizing he was being pulled back into his own miserable existence, he fought to retain the storybook romance, idolizing what he saw as the pure emotion shared between the original couple.

Some incarnations thereafter were on Jotunheim, some on Asgard, many on Midgard. A few were even lived out through Alfheim, and a strange one in a very distant galaxy he could not fathom, it was so out of his realm of knowledge.

He considered the lives that came after the first to be insignificant, petty, whining, and blind idiots who couldn’t find their arse with both hands glued to their bum cheeks.

Despite his desperate struggles, Loki was sucked into one of the bubbles. A sickening sensation lurched into his gut like a thousand stones being tied around his waist and thrown into the Asgardian ocean.

With a dramatic _thud_ he fell back into his own body, jerking wildly, throwing his head back, so he hit it sharply on the cold stone floor underneath him.

“Ow.”

“He returns,” the Ancient One cackled.

“Fat lot of good it did. All your little spiritual journey saw fit to teach me was how utterly pathetic all of our lives are compared to the bright light of the original couple. Do you truly wish suicide upon the King of Utgard, now that he has paled so significantly, he may as well be a speck of dust on a giant’s boot?”

A tut somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear annoyed him. Reaching up, he felt long tresses tangling in his fingers. His eyes wouldn’t open.

“I cannot see.”

“It shall return to you in due time. I must say. If you cannot connect the points shown to you and reach the natural conclusion, then all is lost.”

“Stop the theatrics and speak plainly old man,” he hissed. The lump forming on the back of his head was doing his very sour mood, no favors.

“Let me in! I must see him!”

A voice Loki thought he would no longer hear in this lifetime thrust his blinded lids open, vision still very hazy and head swimming. Forcing himself up, he felt the soft hand of his beloved – former beloved? – helping him along. Allowing it for the sake of not embarrassing himself further in front of his subjects, he stumbled and pushed his way down the steps and through to the throne room entry.

“Who goes there!” he demanded.

“It is I!” the voice remanded, and the sound of further scuffling reached his ears.

“I know who you sound like, but I do not believe anything at this juncture. I’ve just been led on a fantastical tale spun to make me believe that – ”

-And Like Thor’s lightning, it hit him. Saying it aloud as it came to him in all of its brutal, crystal, joyful, treacherous clarity, he uttered, “-that I am the reincarnation of the original guard that fell in love with the Lady kidnapped from Asgard many centuries ago. But the stories – never said – never hinted – ”

“The records of your lineage were wiped from existence, in the physical sense,” Hermione’s gentle voice piped up. She still held his elbow. 

He could feel her sustained, soft grip through the layers of his thin tunic’s sleeve as he sagged against her in stark disbelief overrode like a frost beast trampling his former understanding.

Loki felt as if the very fabric of reality was tearing apart at the seams. What was he supposed to believe? Had he gone mad?

“Everyone out!” he shouted, voice hoarse, vision clearing a bit more. The outline of his dead mother silhouetted into view as her form glided through the shut and locked outer door, but he still refused to believe it was not a trick.

“Everyone except the Lady, my – this woman you’ve detained, and the Ancient One. GO!” he screamed, even at the alarmed guards who had suddenly found themselves without the person they were holding back, bursting through the door as Loki gave the order, and nearly being stampeded in the others’ haste to exit, obeying their King’s command.

“All OF YOU!” he re-emphasized, cutting the air with his arm sharply.

Then, panting hard as a thunder of boots and hardened bare feet sounded from the opposite wing of the large room, his Advisor approached from his other side. He knew it was his trusted confidant and friend from the sounds of the swishing the robes made, particular to that fine Jotun fabric only possessed by the richest in the Kingdom.

“Your majesty. May I remain? I do believe I can help piece together this unlikely-sounding story for you.”

“If it would help you to come to a conclusion, he may stay,” the One gave permission as if Loki were not the one in control here.  
Was he not?

“No,” he rasped against his better judgment, if only to thwart the One and re-establish his dominance as ruler of this planet, still healthy and in full authority.

The Advisor’s face settled into the typical blue stone mask of indifference with a stiff bow when he was highly displeased with his King. “As you wish, sire. You have but to call me for assistance.”

Waving a dismissive hand, the Advisor saw himself out, and Loki sighed, drawing a hand over his face in a long gesture. Then, “I must sit. Let us remove ourselves from this public venue. I need sustenance. And a stiff drink.”

Several shots of hard Jotunn ale later, an Aesir brandy in hand now thanks to his un-dead mother whom he was still dubiously eye-balling, not sure this was still not a hallucination, Loki was ready to tentatively let some of the kernels of this fantastical adventure into his formidable and skeptical consideration as to the truth of it.

\--

The Ancient One had fallen asleep several times. This time, he lay snoring, sideways, his crinkled, liver-spotted head on the transformed Hermione’s lap.

Loki’s miasma of emotion, experience, and confusion left him almost completely drained. Did it matter anymore, at this point, whether he was still King of Jotunheim? How could his men and subjects respect him after the pathetic display in the throne room? Surely, rumors of his inexcusable weakness had spread to every corner of Utgard by now.

By Odin’s Bilgesnipe-infested beard, he would never live it down. Hermione was in a hushed conversation with Frigga. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how his mother, or her form, at least, had come to be here in the first place. For once, he was the one with all of the questions and none of the answers. He did not like the feeling one little bit.

Liquid courage restoring a bit of false bravado and giving him a second wind, he gingerly rubbed the thick, aching knot that had dried blood crusting over his hair on the back of his head.

Frigga had risen, going quiet, seeing his consternation and wince of pain. “Really,” she chastised as if he were still a small boy. “You would think, by the way you are acting, I had not taught you the basics of healing yourself by now.”

One smooth motion caused the worst of the discomfort to dissipate and the lump to recede, Loki uncharacteristically letting her do as she would, almost too tired to care. She left his hair clean and tangle-free.

A small sigh of relief didn’t escape Frigga’s notice.

“Are you going to embrace your old mother now?”

Sheepish wasn’t part of Loki’s vocabulary, but he for damn sure knew very well the genuine signature of Frigga’s gentle, loving magick. A traitorous tear escaped the corner of an eye as he surged to his feet, at last, wrapping her genuine form in his arms, dwarfing her for how tall he was compared to her much shorter but stout form.

“Oh, Norns. Mother!”

Her hug was as tight and warm and accepting as he remembered, only sweeter for having her back from wherever she had come from. “I’m not going to ask how you came to be here. Please, stay, be my guest for as long as you like,” he offered, backing away and ushering her into a comfier chair.

She accepted gracefully, arranging her skirts and furs amidst the frosty air, folding her gloved hands on her lap. “My beautiful son.”

Loki blushed. How she complimented him so. The All-Mother never had been sparse with her admiration and compliments regarding her younger son.

Swallowing, then hiding his rasp of emotion with another swig of his drink, Loki turned his head slightly, inclining it towards Hermione. Still confounded, he had no idea how to approach her. She seemed the same – yet very different. Her brash confidence was not exactly gone, but transformed, like her skin and at least part of her spirit.

Looking at his love in a new light, and not as a usurping imposter now that his mother had proven to be real, he asked Frigga, “Who is she really?” Loki was well aware Hermione could probably eavesdrop if she wished to, even though she seemed intent on combing the non-existent hair of the snoring Ancient, grinning fondly as the wizened nostrils fluttered in and out with the inhale and exhalations of air.

Shrugging, Frigga lifted an antique Jotunn cup, fragile from centuries of storage yet still serviceable. Loki had intended to have the tradition of high afternoon re-instated but hadn’t the time. Civility was a sorely needed function in the semi-savage state of the broken society.

“Who do you believe her to be? She appears to be of Jotunn descent. Yet, I know none who sports a wild mane such as hers, even on our wildest prized mares on Asgard.”

“She is magnificent,” Loki murmured aloud unwittingly.

Frigga side-eyed him. Clearly, the boy was smitten. Alas, her time was short with them. If he found out where she had to return, he indeed would insist on following to keep her from it, given the sacrifice she’d made to appear for this short bit of time. It was paramount to get him to really and truly see AND believe what was before him. Loki had only ever really trusted his adopted mother, unconditionally.

“Is she now? I imagine you’ve quite the tale to spin about your own journey in bringing her to the palace in Utgard.”

“Indeed. One so fantastical, you would scarcely believe it to be true,” he smirked.

“They say life is stranger than fiction.”

“Indeed.”

“One that millennia from now, if the stories are told and re-told, maybe as fantastical to believe as the truth that you are the reincarnation of that young guard. It doesn’t seem so fantastical from that point of view, now, does it?”

Frigga was content to let that lie, knowing Loki would chew on with a beast with a bone, worrying it until he’d come to a conclusion.

It saddened her he still hadn’t accepted it. What would it take to cement the belief of his complicated past inside his heart, as he’d cemented his bonds to the girl?

Loki didn’t answer her, and they both fell silent. Hermione had ceased petting the Ancient One and was now politely waiting, hands folded in her lap, seeming to stare right at the pair but obviously far away in her thoughts. Her red eyes glowed an intense ruby but with that hint of chocolate around the irises. Disconcerting, to say the least.

“Midgardian.”

Loki inhaled sharply. “How did you know?”

“Oh, come now. I was raised by witches, boy. I know more than you by thousands of years. One cannot give up all of their secrets in a mere afternoon.”

“Oh, but the things you could teach me,” he teased, growing tense even as he kept his tone light. He could sense their time growing short.

Suddenly frantic, heart threatening to beat out of his chest, he resisted the desire to clutch his mother to him again. How could he not be of her flesh? The bond he felt from her was incredible. The only other person he had felt that with was… was…. Shit.

He looked over at Hermione again, who met his gaze. As if knowing what he was thinking, she changed before his eyes, back into the short-haired, lithe, scrapping, and wild beauty he’d first fallen for in his prison.

“Is this better suited to your tastes?” she asked him softly.

Choking on a sob, he did reach for his mother now, suddenly a little boy again, afraid and confused.

His hands met with thin air. Wildly grasping, he almost raged, taking to his feet in a defensive stance, conjuring his daggers.

“Mother!” he exclaimed wildly, casting about. “MOTHER!”

“Look inside of yourself, Loki. That is all you have ever had to do,” her voice echoed all around him.

Her image coalesced into a smoky mist before him, and smiled. Much like when he was in prison back on Asgard the day she’d died, his hands came up, the daggers clattering to the hard floor, his hands drawing down over her sweet, milky ones only to fall through as she dissipated once again into the ether.

“Look inside of your soul. Open yourself to who you are. You will know.”

_**“MOTHER!”** _


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The King does not know who - or what - to believe. In his rattled state, he is forced to leave the palace and face his enemies on the battlefield. His comrades are overjoyed when Loki's consciousness finally makes the the transition their King has been fighting against for so long.

Chapter 11

Already frustrated beyond belief at the disappearance of his beloved mother and the infuriatingly calm, patient smile on the Jotunn/Hermione version of his love that refused to answer any further questions as she hummed and rocked the Ancient One as he slept,Loki was now faced with a rebel invasion on the northern edge of Utgard.

He had paced like a wounded, angry animal after he realized his mother was gone again. He vowed to find out where she disappeared _to_ , knowing it was likely he never would.

Loki was torn between the new Jotunn Hermione and the familiar form of hers he’d spent with and made love to while in prison. She’d turned back into the Jotunn form as he’d cast wildly about for Frigga. He couldn’t deny the animal pulse and pull of his physical form towards her fertile, feminine, healthy body. His heart was linked to hers irrevocably. It was merely a matter of time whether he accepted this or rejected it absolutely.

Norns, he hated feeling so torn!

He was forced to leave the palace in the care of his Advisor, whom he gruffly apologized to, promising to have a private talk upon Loki’s return from dealing with said would-be usurpers. The rebels that had already proven their only sentence, when captured, would be death.

His Advisor stressed the importance of actually having _the_ conversation before making any ‘rash’ decisions.

“ _I_ will be the one who decides what is or is not rash in _my_ kingdom, counselor,” he’d reprimanded. 

The old Advisor had grown a set of balls some time between being kicked out of the throne room with the others and their current conversation.

Squaring his formidable shoulders, the Jotunn had confronted him boldly, perhaps for the first time in their acquaintance, gaining new respect from Loki. _Finally,_ he thought.

“I would be remiss in my duty not to advise you that disregarding the new Queen’s status is folly. It has been written-”

“Yes, yes, I know all of that,” Loki waved him away, annoyed. Is that all the fool had to say? “I must be off before the _níðingr_ trying to invade _my_ kingdom, make more of a mess of my rebuilt city than absolutely necessary. It may be time to crush them under my heel once and for all.”

“My Lord,” the Advisor only answered, bowing until Loki was out of the palace and upon one of the great, ungainly, hairy, smelly beasts Jotunheim utilized for steeds. Disgusting, but hardy, fast and deadly.

Kicking it into action, Loki rode out with his most fierce contingent of soldiers, confident of victory.

\--

_Hermione and the Ancient One, the Palace of Utgard, Jotunheim_

“Do you think he will succeed this time?”

A tear escaped the fading light of the Ancient One’s left eye, trailing down and disappearing into the skin's folds.  
Hermione gently wiped it away. 

“He must, child. He must. I do not know why, after all this time, he refuses to see what is in front of him. How much longer will you wait?”

“As long as I must.”

“I can hold out no longer.”

“I know. I know—Sh, rest. You’ve done your penance, Ancient One. There is nothing left to forgive. You’ve more than atoned for the betrayal.”

“I will never atone.”

“The choice has never been yours. If my love cannot see, I will continue to wait. Until the end of time, if necessary.”

“That is, indeed, a very long time.”

The One closed his eyes again, his hand trembling faintly in Hermione’s tender grip.

The Advisor rushed in at that moment, and Hermione’s soft smile fell as she lifted her chin. 

“Have you anything to report?”

“The skirmish has begun. It is too soon to tell who will preside.”

“Surely our forces….”

“Our Highness underestimates his enemy. In his search for _**YOU**_ ,” the Advisor nearly spat, “he’s put the kingdom in peril once again. If he fails….”

“He will not,” she stated, firmly believing it with all of her heart. 

“You do not know that.”

“I do. _Your_ faith is the one in question. It has always been a matter of faith. Ours strengthens his. If you no longer believe in the cause, your services are no longer needed,” she stated coldly.

The Advisor’s eyes widened, and he immediately took one knee as blue Seidr rose from the tendrils of Jotunn Hermione’s curls, licking at the air around them, reaching in ominous circles around his head in the shape of barbed points.

“I – I am sorry, my Lady. I meant no disrespect.”

“If I suspect, for one moment, that you were not loyal to us, I will behead you where you kneel.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Come here, old friend.”

The Advisor was tired of being afraid for his life. Ever since King Loki had been put into power, his life had been on the line. Oh, it wasn’t like it hadn’t been before. Life was never easy on Jotunheim, or in Utgard. But at least under Laufey, he hadn’t needed to worry too much about continuing his genetic line. Now he was caught out, in this lifetime, without a female, and if he failed to complete the task set before him….

Well. He did not relish finding his way to Hel instead of the Jotunn’s version of Valhalla.

Hermione seemed to grow larger, and indeed, when the Advisor opened his eyes, he realized she had. Twice the size she’d been just moments ago. Her chair grew with her, and the ceiling expanded to accommodate her height, so she not only sat comfortably with the snoozing, fading Ancient One on her lap but pulled the Advisor in to sit on her lap as well as if reading two children a bedtime story.

“All will be well.”

“You cannot know this-”

“I know,” she hushed him firmly, then pulled his head to her breast snugly and pressed him into it.

Oh, that was quite nice. Yes. Much nicer than what his teacher had told of her predecessors. Very nice bosoms indeed. The King was a lucky, lucky man if only King Loki would allow the veil to fall and see what was right in front of him. He had everything in his grasp but would lose it all in his stubbornness to forgive himself all those millennia ago for losing his true love.

\--

_On the front lines of the battlefield_

It appeared as if every last Jotun on the entire planet had been rounded up and elected to fight for the opposing side. Of course, this supposition was ridiculous. Jotunheim was a colossal planet by any standards, most of it uninhabitable even by the Jotunns' hardiest. Only the most formidable creatures dared migrate across the wastelands to forage new hunting grounds in the scarce, unforgiving landscape.

His own men were uneasy, the beasts of burden ready to spook.

The rebels were riding ice golems. Large, nasty creatures that he thought untamable. They must have been spelled for how still they were, all in row upon row. How had they come across so many? Their stinking, slavering saliva dripped in poisonous glops onto the frozen ground, burning holes where they stood, impervious to any damage he was aware of.

Shit. This was not good.

“My King? What are your orders?”

One of his two lead generals nervously picked at his enchanted chain mail, the ice magick sparking where he touched it.

“Stop your fidgeting,” Loki whisper-shouted. “I’m trying to think.”

“Why are they not charging us?” the other General wondered aloud.

The troops nearest them shuffled uneasily.

“All of you will be _SILENT!”_ Loki hissed a little louder, stilling them temporarily. He was losing control of the situation fast. If he didn’t kick his innovative mind into gear and get them out of this alive and in one piece, there would surely be Hel to pay. Loki knew his silver tongue would not serve him now.

Out of the swirling flakes of driving snow came the largest of the ice golems, topped with an ostentatious saddle in which a familiar figure rode, grinning down at him, skin wrapped tight around his bare skull.

“No! It can’t be!” he mouthed silently, and the figure threw his head back and laughed. 

Inexplicably it echoed in the surrounding air, sending Loki’s beasts into a nervous uproar, braying, and snorting and shuffling about at the irritating sound. The opposing Jotunns rattled their swords, sabers, and pikes, shouting encouragement to their leader.

Loki stupidly shouted. _‘Eloquent, Loki, just wonderful,’_ he thought.

“Yes. Me.”

“I thought you were – but you can’t be –”

“Dead? Oh. I wish it were so. But as long as you do not believe in that which has come before and embrace it, I cannot die. So, you see. I find it is high time I took what was due me. Your ancestors’ line has gone on long enough. You’ve failed to breed the girl when she was in your grasp. It’s a pity the jailors missed her presence. I could have had her fat with child by now.”

“NO!” he screamed, his heart beating wildly.

“Yes. The girl was supposed to be mine. MINE!”

A wild look entered the dulled whites of the glorified skeleton’s red eyes. The image before Loki flickered between Aesir and Jotunn, the same as his Hermione had changed……

“Does this form suit you better?”

“You betrayed us!” Loki screamed before his army, many confused, many nodding in recognition, though they did not know why, and a very few silent, waiting to see how this confrontation would play out. Old and familiar to them as the tides under the icy seas. 

“How could you? I thought you were our friend!”

The King realized the memories were bleeding through, and his past in this lifetime coalesced with those of other lifetimes, especially the one that had begun all of this. He couldn’t stop it, the cycle taking over where the old Loki would have fought it tooth and nail. There was no reversing Fate.

“It was not I who betrayed you,” the skull-creature shrugged. “I simply failed to stop it from happening.”

“And so you trapped yourself in this vicious cycle with us. Was that your intent?”

The confused men shuffled again, looking ready to break rank. They were unfamiliar with long, drawn-out arguments between leaders. 

Most knew only of fighting, fucking, and feasting. Or death. This type of exchange was unknown to them, and they longed for the familiarity of bloodshed and victory.

“Of course not! Don’t be so dull! You always thought you were the better man.”

“I _AM_ the better man. I am _KING!_ ” Loki’s voice rose again, roaring above the thick, super-charged air, so every single being in both armies heard his angry, triumphant, sure-sounding declaration.

“Being born into the bloodline does make you all-mighty like the All-Father!” his enemy hissed tightly, slapping the thick skin of the beast below the pommel of his saddle.

“You will not mention Odin in my presence!”

Loki was about to lose it.

His general took over, seeing the blue vein ticking and about to burst on Loki’s temple.

“My King. A word.”

Sneering, snubbing him as Loki looked away when his general addressed him, the nemesis leader grated on the King’s ears and psyche. 

“Yes, run along with your little army. You have ten minutes to surrender. I grow tired of this song and dance. No longer do I wish to complete this cycle anymore. This will be the last life I live playing your family’s childish games. Be done. Tuck tail and go home to Utgard, and I will only kill the men and not the women and children.”

“My liege!” the other General emphasized as Loki raised his hands to reach out and strike at the opposition.

The entire army held their breath, ready to attack, frustrated and thwarted again when the challengers turned as one to a silent, unseen command only they were aware of, and marched away, stopping far enough to obscure their activities but close enough to keep a formidable presence.

Forcibly moving the King away from the front lines, Loki reluctantly allowed himself to be hustled into a royal and hastily set-up tent for consultation.

The generals shared an unknowable look.

“What is it?” Loki snapped. Why did everyone look as if they knew something he did not?

They stared at him expectantly. One spoke slowly as if his King was having trouble comprehending the words.

“Have you …. Awakened? My Lord?”

“What are you talking about? What nonsense is this?” Loki snapped again, arms crossed. He appeared to be back to where he was before, only aware of his own existence in this lifetime.

Snarling at his top men, he voiced, “We are wasting time. If you’ve no battle plan to speak of, begone so I may think in peace.”

The other general gently edged in front of the other. “You recognized the opposing force leader,” he stated obviously, waiting for Loki to acknowledge him.

“Of course, I did you imbecile! Why I promoted you to be my right-hand men I’ve no idea but –”

Then, like a burst of light, a super-nova of clarity hit the King, nearly bowling him over. He stood quickly, knocking over the glass of rare ale set to one side and soaking the coverlet he’d sat upon.

“ _Of course,_ I did,” he repeated under his breath. “Oh Norns, what a _fool_ I’ve been.”

The sign the men were waiting for appeared. Loki, who would never have done so if he were _only_ Loki. 

Bringing his black, sculpted nails to his mouth, Loki unconsciously started biting on the tips, startling when he heard a _crack_ , signifying he’d broken the end off of one. “What in the Nine?” he asked aloud, staring at his fingernail like one of the enemies.

His generals shared a look of disbelief, then jubilation as they linked hands and uncharacteristically danced around in a circle. “We are free! Finally! At last! We will be free!”

He continued to stare at his hand, more memories flooding his mind, body, and soul, coalescing in layer upon layer until nothing remained but the pure essence of King Loki, of this lifetime, and lover Loki, the tragic sweetheart of his lost Lady.

He remembered now. He _remembered!_ The very last vestiges of the stubborn, blind, prideful being that had paraded his soul for centuries fell away, nary a scream as it was shed permanently in lieu of reaching the final hour of this cycle.

Loki’s heart resolved from centuries, reincarnated millennia of heartache, betrayal, blindness, and the myriad layers of emotional and mental garbage he’d allowed to cloud his destiny and wallow in. So much time, wasted. When he could have… should have… Well. It was too late now. There was no going back.

With chagrin, he made note that he’d begun biting his nails, a disgusting habit in any lifetime, on any realm. It was what gave him away to his generals, whom he realized already knew who he was, had been, was supposed to be, and finally become.

Making a cutting motion with his hand, Loki linked his arms with his generals and pulled their foreheads to his own. “Brothers. Forgive me. There is no excuse in this universe as to the oceans of time I’ve forced your fates to wade through with mine own. We will conclude this together. Perhaps the Fates have had their fill and will let us live and love and rest at last. We will finish this incarnation now or five thousand years from now. But it will be the final one.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you, my King. Thank you.”

The oblivious, disgruntled army around them would have been shocked to see the three old friends weep with joy, then steel themselves for the oncoming confrontation that meant almost certain death for them all, such was the seething mass that awaited them just beyond a frozen expanse of ice.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of our harrowing journey. HEA.

Chapter 12 - Conclusion

Very late in the night, Hermione had relocated to a roaring fire she’d started in an over-sized hearth. Now in her Jotunn form, her natural human one seemed foreign, her life on Midgard very far away. The person known as Hermione Granger was but a change of clothing for her eternal soul. So very weary, she was. They all were.

The Ancient One’s breath rattled, near death. He indeed had given his all, the poor thing.

The Advisor snuggled into the valley between her enlarged, clothed breasts. At one time, well, many times, he’d been her son, her brother, and once even her father. The familiarity of his touch was a balm to her heart. It eased the niggling worry that the Fates would again thwart destiny and choose to cruelly subject them all to another cycle. 

Surely this would end tonight?

Be the new beginning of a final end?

A tension hung about Utgard as if the entire city held its collective breath.

In the very early hours, Hermione woke, the hearth gone dark except for the banked coals and the soft snores of the Advisor on her chest. 

The Ancient One had passed sometime during the moments she’d fallen asleep and woken suddenly.

What else had changed?

Reaching out with her senses, Hermione felt rather than heard the peace, the collective sigh that echoed through the universe as hundreds of souls that had chained themselves together at last relaxed and lapsed into a state of cosmic bliss.

She smiled. It was over. Truly. Now, they could rest.

\--

The head of the enemy adorned the tallest pike at the main gate to the city. Loki had long since returned to the palace. He was nervous. It was ridiculous. There was no reason to be. Yet, he’d acted an ass for so many lifetimes, and at last, he was held accountable in this one. 

He’d finally accepted who he was – who they were to one another. Lifemates. Soulmates. Bondmates. Kindred spirits. The rare kind that binds together the fabric of the universe, trapped in tragedy and ruin, righted by karma, the Fates, and a few interfering mothers who had sacrificed more than Loki would ever fathom to see it through to its happy conclusion.

++

At the end of the long hallway before the formal, shared chambers of the King and Queen of Utgard, Loki’s multi-lifetime best friend and brother – now his Advisor in this one – smiled, congratulating him on a successful campaign to both overthrow the one responsible for cursing them all, and awakening, at last, to believe in the power of love.

It was all so very simple to everyone except for the one it mattered the most: Loki himself.

Indeed, Frigga was very wise, when she’d told him once upon a time, that he was so perceptive about everyone else around him. Yet unable to be the same unto himself.

The unused chambers had been hastily cleaned, primped, and polished, the bedding changed, the excess ice scraped away to a smooth shine. The coolness collided sensually with the bare upper body the King sported.

Patting his Advisor on the shoulder and thanking him, Loki dismissed his friend, took a deep breath, and threw open the doors.

On the bed, like a sacrifice waiting at the altar, lay his bride. In true Jotunn fashion, all he needed to do was lay with her in the marriage bed and consummate their love, and they would be officially bonded in the eyes of the Kingdom. So simple, yet not undertaken lightly. This bed had not been used for centuries, yet the enchantments still stood, keeping it for the pure of heart and faithful of mind and body.

Of that, Hermione and Loki had all in spades.

A growl erupted from his lithe, lightly muscled blue chest, his marks standing out in stark relief in the bright morning light. The windows were thrown open, and a chill gust had him hard in mere moments. Or perhaps that was simply the delicious prospect of bedding his bride and impregnating her with the heir to the throne?

He couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to get to this point and break the curse. However, there was no sense in lamenting as they were here, now, together at last. He would make it memorable for her. He would die for her. He would live for her. She was his everything.

“Come here, my love. Warm our marriage bed with me.”

“Gladly,” he rumbled, then sprang, landing with a bounce next to her, and she squealed when he pounced on her, wrapped her in his long arms, and took her mouth with his own, pressing his tongue to mingle with hers in a wild tangle of abandonment.

When at last they pulled back for air, he had eyes only for his bride. “You are magnificent, darling.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she teased, some Midgardian jocular verbiage crawling into her speech.

He almost cuffed her in jest for that. “You will not soil us with the mortals' lowly scraps,” he groused, and she pulled away slightly, slapping at his chest.

“If it weren’t for those lowly mortals, I wouldn’t be here with you right now. I’ll have you know I was quite happy on Earth.”

“What. Fighting dark wizards and getting into trouble with teenage boys, risking your life for idiots and morons?”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Her lips pursed, and he could no longer resist, pulling her back in for another round of passionate lip-locking. True to form, he ripped the diaphanous gown from her figure, luxuriating in the curls that covered her to the waist, free for him to at last wrap his fingers in and tug gently, pulling her head this way and that until she tugged at the short hairs under his own long black tresses.

“That’s enough of that. You may play noble steed with me later.”

“Indeed?” Loki’s brow raised, and he nipped at her bottom lip. “I had no idea you were so kinky, my Queen.”

“A witch has more than a few tricks up her sleeve. My time with you in prison should have taught you that,” she replied.

He pondered that soberly for a moment, losing himself to melancholy, but only for a moment. 

“You are correct. You have taught me many things, beloved, and I’m sure will open my eyes to many more. You slay me. Rule me. I am your humble servant. You’ve but to ask, and it shall be yours.”

Magically removing the rest of his clothing with a wave of her hand, Loki pressed his erection between her thighs' vee spread beneath him. 

Ruby eyes lost themselves in his, and his love was so vast at that moment he thought his heart would burst.

“Give me a child, my love,” she requested simply.

“With pleasure.”

There was no more extraordinary gift he could give her, and she to him, than an heir to celebrate their glorified royal union and the freedom they’d gifted to the hundreds of souls carried with them through the eons of that pesky thing marching by, otherwise known as Time.

\--

_Much later_

The couple watched their blue-skinned children playing in the restored frozen gardens of Utgard palace, Loki’s hands cradled around Hermione’s swollen belly where their fourth baby lay ready to greet the world. He kissed the top of her head and rested his chin on top, smirking as she stifled a yawn.

He contemplated how lucky he was to finally find what he’d sought for so long after he’d quit looking for it.

Love always found a way.

They had escaped the cosmic chains of Jotunheim Prison, at last beyond its cursed grasp. 

On the planet of Earth, very, very far away from Utgard, deep in a cave in the Himalayas guarded by the legendary Yeti, a magical mirror flickered its final image and shattered into thousands of pieces, it’s journey of bridges to others worlds concluded at last.

_A/N: Thank you for taking this journey with me! I am aware there are a number of plot points you may have questions about. I deliberately did not add in some explanations, because I plan to make this into a series and add in one shots that address those discrepancies. I feel they deserve to be expanded upon, but have too much on my plate right now to do so or this fic would go on another 30K words. I have all of them written out and addressed in a separate document to keep track of them. I hope you loved it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Cheers!_


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